The ballots have been mailed and the members of the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts are voting for the artists and the recordings that will be finalists for the 2013 Na Hoku Hanohano Awards.
HARA members have until today to vote for up to five finalists in each of 26 categories.
The finalists will be announced in early April and HARA members will then vote a second time to select the winners.
The winners will be announced at the 2013 Na Hoku Hanohano Awards show May 25 at the Hawai‘i Convention Center’s Kalakaua Ballroom.
The big news this year is the introduction of three additional categories. There’s a new category for alternative album that in effect creates a second category for rock music, an ukulele album category that separates ukulele instrumental albums from instrumental albums that feature other instruments, and a new composer’s award — instrumental composition — that will go to the composer of a single instrumental song.
THE Hoku Awards were created in 1977 to recognize excellence within the Hawaii recording community, but in recent years eligibility requirements have allowed nonresidents and recordings made outside the state to compete in many categories.
The result is a lengthy preliminary ballot that includes 50 preliminary contenders for group of the year, 112 preliminary contenders for album of the year and 108 preliminary contenders for favorite entertainer, which is the one category where the winner is determined by votes from the general public.
The vast majority of the releases on the ballot are DIY projects that have had little visibility outside the artist’s circle of friends and family.
When the votes are tallied next month, the finalists in the major categories will almost certainly be the major artists on the big-time labels — Manu Boyd, Amy Hanaiali‘i Gilliom, Kawaikapuokalani Hewett, Ho‘okena, Weldon Kekauoha, Kuana Torres Kahele and Na Palapalai, to name a few of the heavyweights.
See the complete preliminary ballot at www.honolulupulse.com.
For more information on the Hoku Awards, go to www.nahokuhanohano.org.
