Students at Kamehameha Schools took their final practice Thursday at the Neal S. Blaisdell Arena, a last run before the 106th Annual Kamehameha Schools Song Contest was scheduled to return Friday night. The live broadcast was set to begin at 6:30 p.m. with a preshow, and the competition was scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
The rehearsal carried extra weight because the contest had been pushed back after severe weather from a Kona low storm forced the cancellation of statewide events in March. Callie Onishi said the moment felt almost unchanged from the last Thursday rehearsal, but added that the students were better prepared and more ready this time, a difference she said showed in their mele.
This year’s theme, Pauahi Nona Ka Lei, centered the songs on Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, whose will established Kamehameha Schools in 1887. Each class composed its own coed songs through a haku mele process, working in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, and those new songs will be added to Kamehameha’s musical library for future generations and future Song Contests.
Onishi said the final rehearsal mirrors the pressure of the arena itself, though with far fewer people in the seats, and gives students a sense of what they will face under the lights on Friday night. That is what makes the return matter: after March’s cancellation, the contest is not just back on the calendar, it is back in the form students had been preparing for all along.