Hawaiian Baritone
About this campaign
Hawaiian Baritone is a documentary short about Native Hawaiian opera singer Quinn Kelsey, recognized by critics as the premier Verdi baritone of his generation.
As we follow his winter season at the NY Metropolitan Opera, Kelsey recounts his journey from Honolulu to the international stage, then to a personal zenith: returning home to play the lead role in "Kamalehua: The Sheltering Tree,” the first professional opera sung primarily in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, staged in 2026 in Honolulu.
Kelsey’s story matters as one of the first Native Hawaiians to prevail in a eurocentric space, and reflects a new generation of Pacific Islander artists staging Hawai’i’s classical vocal traditions on their own terms.
In an era when more Hawaiians live on the continent than in Hawaiʻi, Kelsey’s journey from Hawai’i across the globe charts how diasporic AAPI communities negotiate identity, belonging, and movement; of building an artist’s life while honoring the people and traditions of the lands one came from.