Noelani Peet

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Noelani Peet spent her childhood on the lyrical and sun-drenched island of Oahu, Hawai’i with her Japanese-American mother and German-English-Minnesotan father. Chasing rainbows, swimming in the Pacific and the rainforest waterfall pools were part of daily life. There was always at least one piano in the house, and her linguist/musician father taught at the university and sang and played guitar on the Windjammer cruises in Honolulu Harbor.It was on her grandmother’s two Steinway pianos in Minnesota that Noelani began her initial instruction. She moved onto formal lessons in Hawaii at age ten, also playing the violin in various orchestras but choosing to concentrate solely on the piano when she was fifteen. During her formative years, Noe took part in several piano competitions (and won once or twice) as well as participated in chamber music summer camps. Noe then went on to study creative writing and music in college, and began writing her first songs. “Songwriting seemed to be the perfect marriage between my passion for music and love of words,” she recalls. “Since my dad was a linguist, I couldn’t really escape words when I was growing up, their meanings and sounds, the way they roll off your tongue. The musicality and nuances of the words themselves—in addition to the voices of the piano.”Voilá, a star is born, right? Not so easy, not so fast. Life has a funny way of meandering about and dropping us, sometimes naked and defenseless, in strange and faraway places. Noelani’s path landed her in Vienna, Austria. Over the past two years, she has played in various locales around Vienna and irecently finished her first studio CD. Noe’s music has been described as “intensely emotional and vulnerable with an emphasis on classical structure”. Her influences range from Chopin, Mozart and Beethoven to the Smashing Pumpkins, Rickie Lee Jones and Fiona Apple.