Celebrating the Music of Helen Desha Beamer

How do you pass the time when youʻre on a long ride to visit a friend? If you are Helen Desha Beamer, you may decide to compose a song, complete with music and lyrics...

Her grandson, Mahi Beamer, says that part of her genius was in being able to compose songs with such speed that:

“[Sometimes] she would wake up in the middle of the night, go to the piano, and everything would come to her — all the words, and music, and everything. She would jot down the music in her number style and then the lyrics, and she would have a complete song. And she would write on anything — on the backs of envelopes or torn pieces of paper — and there would be lots of these little notepapers all over. Also she carried her ʻukulele with her a lot. She would sing as she went along. So as she was composing a piece she was playing it...”

Printed Program [view pdf]