Collaborators: The Galliards
Our collaboration with the Galliard String Quartet began in 2022, when we started to adapt our favorite full orchestra Exotica hits—like those from Les Baxter and Henry Mancini—to work in a pared-down setting. Of course, it helps greatly that our very own W7 violinist, Helen, is also leader of GSQ!
prolific professionals
Composed of some of Hawaiʻi’s most prolific professional string musicians, The Galliards are known throughout the islands for their passion and dedication to the master composers of classical instrumental music. Founded in 1982 by members of the Honolulu Symphony, the ensemble began its life as the Galliard String Quartet, and focused on interpretations of core string quartet repertoire, such as that by Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Dvorak, Schubert, and others.
The Galliards are one of the three resident ensembles of Chamber Music Hawaiʻi, a nonprofit whose mission is to enrich Hawaii’s cultural life and promote appreciation and understanding of chamber music.
Celebrated for their uncompromising commitment to performing classical music at the highest caliber, The Galliards perform frequently with acclaimed classical artists, including pianists Joyce Yang, Wu Han, and Billy Childs. Also strong proponents of expanding the canon with works by living composers, they regularly commission and premiere new works by Hawaiʻi-based composers, notably championing Michael-Thomas Foumai, Takuma Itoh, Leilehua Lanzilotti, and Jon Magnussen.
creative trailblazers
In the 1990s, the Galliard String Quartet undertook a project to study, arrange, perform, and record the music of Queen Lili’uokalani, Hawaiʻi’s last reigning monarch. Recorded and released in 1995, GSQ’s Songs of Liliʻuokalani was trailblazing because it introduced her music to a classical audience. Featuring arrangements by Robert Cazimero, Angel Pena, Byron Yasui, and others, Songs of Liliʻuokalani has since inspired countless other classical musicians to learn and include the Queenʻs music in their own repertoire.
STRINGS that swoon & swing
The sultry, sensuous sound of The Galliards’ strings make for quite the sensation with The WAITIKI 7.
Over time, we have composed a number of songs that feature strings. In fact many selections on our newest releases, Caves of the Sea and Enchantment Under the Kiawe Tree: Live at House Without A Key are made possible by our collaboration.
Some of our favorite songs with The Galliards include “Cave of Uldo” (one of Randy’s originals, to which Tim added serialist, twelve-tone interjections by the strings), “Quiet Village,” which references Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe Suite no. 2, “Tropicando” and “Bird of Paradise,” both Les Baxter hits, and Tim’s version of the Bill Kaiwa song, “Halekulani,” which pays tribute to our favorite House Befitting Heaven.
