From Easter Island, a Pianist Emerges
Mahani Teave, 38 and likely the only professional classical performer from the remote island, has released her first album.
From her home, halfway up the highest hill on Rapa Nui, Mahani Teave was describing the power of nature there to overwhelm.
“On one side, I have an almost 180-degree view of the ocean,” she said in a recent interview. “A big fog is coming in from the hill on the other side.”
The profusion of stars gives the black of the sky a seemingly “papier-mâché texture,” she said. When the sounds of crickets cease, profound silence completes “a stunning experience for the senses.”
Teave, 38, learned to appreciate such stirring encounters while growing up on Rapa Nui — also known as Easter Island, the name imposed by European interlopers in 1722. From there, one of the remotest inhabited islands on the planet, this pianist went on to earn a place on the international concert stage. But rather than press on with a career of incessant touring, and quite possibly the only professional classical performer to emerge from Rapa Nui to date, she decided to return and establish the first music school on the small island nearly a decade ago.
But she hasn’t stopped playing. Teave’s debut album, “Rapa Nui Odyssey,” was recently released on the British label Rubicon Classics. The recording project inspired “Song of Rapa Nui,” a new documentary streaming on Amazon Prime, directed by the Emmy Award-winning producer and filmmaker John Forsen and narrated by Audra McDonald.
It was at Teave’s island school that the Seattle-based musician, rare string instrument collector and arts patron David Fulton had a chance encounter with her as part of a world cruise with his wife in the spring of 2018.