For some of us, nostalgia is something to experience every once in a while, when the right tune pops up on an oldies radio station or perhaps during a TV commercial.
Brody Dolyniuk gets to live it all the time.
He is the frontman for Windborne Music, which has brought orchestral versions of classic rock to concert halls around the world and will be bringing the music of the the psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd to Blaisdell Concert Hall Friday , with the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra providing background accompaniment. The orchestra and Windborne have performed the music of Journey and Led Zeppelin here, with Dolyniuk providing all the hard rockin’ that a well-behaved flower child (or ill-behaved hippie) could need.
“THE MUSIC OF PINK FLOYD”
The Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra featuring Windborne Music Productions
>> Where: Blaisdell Concert Hall
>> When: 7:30 p.m. Friday
>> Cost: $34 to $92
>> Info: 800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com
“The good news is that all this music, these catalogs of music, it’s really the soundtrack of my life, and so fortunately it’s ingrained in my blood,” he said. “It doesn’t take a lot of effort for me to conjure these songs back up.”
An ever-youthful outlook helps, Dolyniuk was born in 1970 (“which I guess makes me 28,” he said), so while he might have been a bit young to fully comprehend what Pink Floyd was doing when the band first burst upon the American scene in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, he’s had no problems embracing the sound.
The group, started by guitarists Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, percussionist Nick Mason and keyboard player Rick Wright, established a near-cult following with music that sounded, well, almost occult, with long, moody intros giving way to textured, echo-laden soundscapes set to a heavy, contemplative pace.
Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” will be performed in its entirety at today’s concert. So popular was the 1973 album that it stayed on the Billboard charts for 15 years and even returned in 2009.
“It’s operatic in nature, and because of that it’s one of the greatest concept albums ever,” Dolyniuk said. “It has this kind of recurring theme, this cutting observation of humanity.”
Dolyniuk particularly enjoys performing classic rock with an orchestra. It adds yet another dimension to the music of Pink Floyd, already known for blending classic rock instrumentation with electronic sounds produced on a synthesizer.
“I’m not the star of this show, the music is the star of the show,” he said. “There are many times when I get a chance to breathe for a minute, and soak it all in, and I go, ‘This is really amazing.’”
One of the best known vocal sections in “Dark Side of the Moon,” a soulful wail in “The Great Gig in the Sky,” will be sung by Kathryn Key, Windborne’s keyboard player.
“It’s enough to be either the vocalist or the keyboard player, but she does both amazingly well,” Dolyniuk said. “She’s covering both parts, and always gets a huge reaction from the crowd.”
MUSICAL FARE INCLUDES TRIBUTE TO CZECH CULTURE
Friday’s “Music of Pink Floyd” concert opens a busy performance schedule for the symphony.
This weekend, the orchestra performs a Masterwork’s program “Votapek plays Dvorak.” Symphony principal cellist Mark Votapek presides over the cello concerto, generally considered the greatest written for the instrument.
“I’ve found that it really does speak to me personally,” said Votapek, who was once also a member of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. “Dvorak’s composing from America, after dedicating himself to American music, but longing for his home and even going to the trouble to rewrite an extended finish to the concerto that he said depicts that return home. Maybe it’s an aspect that many others in Hawaii can also relate to, like I have.”
Votapek particularly enjoys the slower sections of the concerto, which he finds “so touching,” he said, while the biggest challenge is the orchestration. “Usually in cello concerti, composers keep the orchestration thin so the cello isn’t drowned out,” he said. “Dvorak is writing for the heavens, though, and if a full wind choir is the perfect coloration to go with that cello melody or cadenza, you get a full wind choir.”
The concert is a celebration of Czech culture, first consolidated in 1918 as the Republic of Czechoslovakia. In addition to the Dvorak, the program includes works by Dvorak’s son-in-law and protege Josef Suk, and Bedrich Smetana, considered the father of Czech music.
ON WEDNESDAY, the symphony reprises the “Symphony of the Hawaiian Birds,” a cooperative effort by local composers, naturalists and artists, headed by University of Hawaii-Manoa composition professor Takuma Itoh, natural resources professor Melissa Price and animator Laura Margulies. It refers to birds significant in Hawaiian culture, such as the i‘iwi and ‘elepaio, along with prehistoric birds, including owls that were 3 feet tall and walked on land.
One movement, composed by Itoh, uses the song of the o‘o as a melody. The song was recorded on Kauai in the late 1980s, in what is considered to be the call of the last survivor.
Classical music returns the following weekend with “Bohemian Journey.”
Pianist Conrad Tao plays Brahms’ first piano concerto. Guest conductor Fabio Mechetti leading the orchestra in Dvorak’s fourth symphony.