My Time on Parker Honor Choir's Trip to Na Leo Hou

Every year, Parker’s Honor Choir spends the first month of the spring semester preparing for the most exciting event of the year: Na Leo Hou State Choral Festival. Held at Central Union Church in Honolulu, around 400 students come from schools across the state to sing together in a concert held in the beautiful church. As a small choir compared to the rest of the schools, we almost never take the opportunity to sing our own song at the concert, but this year we felt that our choir was strong enough to take on the challenge. We decided to prepare an arrangement of Once Upon a December from Anastasia (which would be familiar to those who attended our Winter Showcase last December).

Before the concert, we would spend Friday afternoon and all day Saturday learning the four mass choir songs we would sing. We met at the airport early on Friday morning and had an unproblematic flight to Honolulu, where we met the only other choir that had to fly in— Island School from Kaua’i. We had coordinated our travel with them, so we would take the same bus between the hotels,the festival, and the airport. We all headed onto the bus for our first stop: a workshop at Hawaii Pacific University for us to get professional feedback on our individual songs. After about an hour of constructive feedback, we were off to our hotel to quickly drop our stuff off before heading to Ala Moana.

We were staying at the Prince Waikiki, so Ala Moana was only a few minutes away. We had several hours to spend doing as we pleased in the area, so my friends and I got Raising Cane’s and just walked around for a while before going back to the hotel to relax before a long day of socializing and singing. We left for Central Union Church at 4 that afternoon with a combination of nerves and excitement.

Aside from the music, Na Leo Hou is so important to me because of the people I’ve met. For the past two years, I’ve sat in the exact same seat (assigned by height), in the first row of tenors, right behind the altos. As I found my familiar seat, I was greeted by several familiar faces. I had friends that I recognized from last year, which made it easy for me to feel comfortable. The thing about Na Leo Hou is you’re kind of forced to make friends. They usually don’t sit you next to people you know (although some people manage to get around it), and you’re surrounded by the same people for two days straight. The director also had us do a lot of interaction with the people around us, especially during warmups. I found it super fun and came away with even more friends than I came in with.

Every year, the festival has a new director, but this year’s director, Tracy Wong, was by far my favorite. She’s very experienced, and her ability to deal with a room of 400 high schoolers who won’t stop singing is commendable.

After a few hours of practicing, we left for the night and went back to the hotel, ready for another day of rehearsals the next day. With time to get breakfast in the morning, we (or at least I) were all energized and ready to go. 

One of the coolest things about Na Leo Hou is that the 400-person choir does songs that our choir would never even consider tackling. Each year, we learn four pieces— a Hawaiian piece, another language piece, and two pieces in English— that all tell some story together. Our Hawaiian piece was called Ka Haku Ku'u Ikaika, and its fast pace and complicated harmonies made it difficult to learn. For me, it was the most challenging piece we did. The other language piece was in Korean, and it quickly became my favorite to sing. Titled Noriteo, it was inspired by the children’s game Red Light, Green Light, which was popularized globally by the show Squid Game. Our director knew the composer personally and explained that the piece was written to capture what it felt like to play that game as a child in Korea. While Squid Game casts the game in an atmosphere of fear and imminent death, the song’s intense and dramatic composition instead channels the way a child might experience it; it feels just as scary as the show because the naivete of childhood allows you to become just as immersed in a childhood game as in a life-or-death situation.

The first of the English songs we performed was called Sanctuary, and it had one of the most complicated arrangements I had ever seen for a high school choir. 400 students expertly performing a nuanced mix of riffs, runs, and dissonance is no easy feat, and during our practice, we spent a large portion of time on this song. It was beautiful when put together, but it was definitely one of the hardest pieces for me to understand without constantly looking at my music to see what was coming next.

The last song we learned was called Take This Gift, and it was written by our director, Tracy Wong. She describes it as a “happy breakup song,” leaving music as a parting gift to a loved one. I fell in love with this song, not just because my part was easy, but because the way each part worked together to communicate the lyrics’ story through music. Parts of it felt like a chant, something you wouldn’t hear in a concert but something you’d feel on a carefree afternoon with the people you love. It was hard not to tear up as it all came together. The second half of the song invited us to clap along, further strengthening that feeling of community and sheer love.

After we finished practicing, we got ready for the performance. We changed into our nice concert clothes and found our places in the church, moving from the practice room. As the concert began and we got ready to sing our independent choir song, we all acknowledged that it was a good first experience for our choir. It may have seemed intimidating, compared to the 100-person choirs around us, but we were proud of our ability to pull together a song and gather the courage to perform.

Once we finished the individual choirs’ pieces, it was time for the mass choir to do our 4 songs. All of the time we’d spent preparing throughout the last two days led up to this moment, and as 400 voices soared throughout the beautiful cathedral and the light of the early evening sun peeked through the stained-glass windows, I remembered why Na Leo Hou is consistently one of my favorite moments of the year. During Ka Haku Ku'u Ikaika, the nerves of performing the first song pushed us to do the best version of the song we’d done. Sanctuary was our second piece, and something about the soaring melodies of that song in the church just felt ethereal. During Noriteo, we do a series of motions and stomps that sound incredible all put together. While we sang Take This Gift for the last time, it hit me that as a senior, this is my last time attending Na Leo Hou. It definitely hurts to leave, knowing that I’ve made so many friends and memories in the three years I’ve attended, but I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve had and everything I’ve learned.

We had to hurry back to the bus for the Kaua’i school to make their flight, leaving us with several hours to sit in the airport and rest. We reminisced on our favorite parts of the trip, went through photos, and spent valuable time talking and savoring the last moments of the trip.

All in all, Na Leo Hou is an incredible experience. I highly recommend that anybody interested in joining a choir consider going on the trip, because it’s absolutely worth all of the early mornings and intense vocal exercises.