Division of Forestry and Wildlife: Forestry Program

Kaulunani partners with NaturePLACE Collaborative Arts Program, a virtual, community-centered artist residency brought to you by the USDA Forest Service and The Nature of Cities. Selected artists engage with natural resource managers and researchers to better understand, represent, and communicate about social-ecological systems through works of art and imagination.

Kilin Reece

2025 Kaulunani Artist in Residence

Kilin is a Grammy-nominated musician, cultural historian, and master luthier with over 30 years of experience in the restoration and construction of fine acoustic stringed instruments. As founder of the Kealakai Center for Pacific Strings and the Pacific String Museum, Reece has led nationally recognized initiatives dedicated to preserving and advancing the cultural, historical, and ecological narratives embedded in Pacific string traditions. 

This residency will investigate Hawaiʻi’s only indigenous stringed instrument—the ʻūkēkē, a musical mouth‑bow native to the islands—and trace its place as both a uniquely Hawaiian tradition and a branch of the planet’s most ancient family of string instruments. It foregrounds the fusion of the Madeiran machete (introduced to Hawaiʻi in the 1870s) with the ʻūkēkē: a cultural and musical hybrid that, in Kalākaua’s royal court and public gatherings, gave rise to the modern ʻukulele. 

Takuma Itoh

2024 Kaulunani Artist in Residence

Takuma Itoh’s music has been described as “brashly youthful and fresh” (New York Times), and has been featured amongst one of “100 Composers Under 40” on WQXR. Recently, Itoh has been instrumental in creating two innovative education programs, Symphony of the Hawaiian Birds (2018) and the Symphony of the Hawai‘i Forests (2023), which has since brought over 12,000 young students to hear new orchestral compositions alongside original animations to raise awareness of Hawai‘i’s many endangered bird species and forests, respectively. His residency project brought the Symphony of the Hawaiʻi Forests back to the stage in 2024. 

Other recent highlights include a work for Invoke (string quartet with ‘ukulele doubling) American Postcards: Picture Brides (Hawaii 1908-1924) that used photographs collected by historian Barbara Kawakami to tell the story of the first Japanese women immigrants who came to Hawai‘i; Wavelengths for Hub New Music, Faded Aura for Hub New Music and shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki, which was performed around Japan on a tour with the Asia American New Music Institute, as well as; a collaboration with the American Wild Ensemble for their tour of Hawai‘i, including a performance at the Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park; and Koholā Sings for harpist Yolanda Kondonassis.

Itoh has been the recipient of the Barlow Endowment general commission, Music Alive: New Partnerships grant with the Tucson Symphony, the Chamber Music America Classical Commission, the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, six ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, and the Leo Kaplan Award.

Itoh has taught at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa since 2012 where he is Professor of Music. He holds degrees from Cornell University, University of Michigan, and Rice University.

Nalu Andrade

2023 Kaulunani Artist in Residence

Nalu first had an interest in carving at the age of six when he saw the 1978 voyage of Hōkūleʻa. He borrowed carving and voyaging books from his school library and began to try to make his own waʻa with items found around his home. While still in high school, he was asked to help with the lashing on Hōkūleʻa at Pier 40 where he met many artists and carvers that were involved in the new Hawaiian renaissance.

After high school, Nalu began making bone koʻi and makau for craft fairs and for the Bishop Museum gift shop. In 2015, Nalu created Na Maka Kahiko. Blending the old with the new; he created his hand carved ʻohe kāpala earrings inspired by designs found at the Bishop Museum.

As artist-in-residence, Nalu led a series of workshops including “Carving Out Our Future: Growing Stewards and Healthy Forests Through the Practice of Kālai” where families learn to carve māna ‘ai (first food dishes for babies). Nalu continues to offer these workshops to communities. 

Above is footage & interviews from a recently funded project ‘Carving Out Our Future with Nalu Andrade’. These workshops strengthened participants relationships to our trees and forests by carving māna ‘ai (babies first food dish).