Eight pieces of original religious music by Hawai'i musician Robert Mondoy, two with strong Hawaiian themes and one based on an ancient chant, will form the backbone of the ornate music for tomorrow's ordination and installation of the Rev. Larry Silva, bishop-elect for Hawai'i's Roman Catholic Diocese.

"All the music is response-oriented so we can respond in joy and enthusiasm," said Mondoy, the music minister at St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Kailua and a musical consultant for the diocesan Office of Worship. "All of us have a chance to say 'hurrah' at every stage of the program."

In a ceremony replete with tradition and ritual, Mondoy's music will add a flavor of Hawai'i, as will the tropical foliage that Silva specifically requested.

Hawaiian gourd drums and ipu heke, along with bamboo drums and rattles, will be used in the service, whose last song Mondoy considers "Hawaiian chang-a-lang."

Mondoy's lavish music is a fusion between the sacred and secular.

As the ceremony begins at 4:30 p.m., the symbols of the new bishop will be borne into the Neal Blaisdell Arena as Kumu John Keola Lake chants an oli of genealogy and welcome to the several thousand expected to attend in addition to several hundred visitors and dignitaries.

"... the presence of our ancestors stir, Moving before us We follow along their path into the heart of your special building ... ," Lake will chant in Hawaiian, continuing ... "Through love we are one, One greeting have we, and it is love."

Mondoy has set Psalm 89 to music and it will be sung after the Liturgy of the Word. He also has composed music for the Litany of Saints, based on a Hawaiian chant.

"He uses Hawaiian tunes and puts a sacred text to them and it turns out very, very well," said 71-year-old Jim Severson, a member of the St. John Vianney choir for almost 30 years and who trained as an operatic tenor as a young man.

"The Canticle of Titus, that's a beautiful piece," said Severson, who planned to be singing "alleluias" as vocal exercises on his way to the final rehearsal, and has been singing along in his car to the rehearsal CD of the ordination music.

"Robert will sing your part on the CD so you can sing along with him," he said of Mondoy, whose music is used nationwide.

Severson, the retired former chief financial officer for Gasco, said another piece is particularly challenging, even to those who studied voice.

The piece is the "Alleluia" by Randall Thompson, a 1940s hymn written for the Tanglewood festival celebration in 1940 in the Berkshires and sung at Silva's ordination as a priest more than 30 years ago. It's one of his favorites, but it's also one of his first challenges to his new diocese. It's being sung at his request.

"It's very difficult," Severson said. "It goes on and on and on, and it's a long piece with a lot of difficult runs."

Alice Secor, 75, a choir member from St. George Church in Waimanalo, agreed that the number is a challenge.

But the singers are up to it, she said. Secor, a first soprano who has known Silva for more than 20 years and went to his ordination in Oakland, Calif., is the mother of the Rev. Gary Secor, one of the two old friends escorting Silva at the ordination.

Despite the tough musical demands of the ordination and installation, Mondoy and Calvin Liu, musical director for Our Lady of Peace Cathedral, spent last week at Kalaupapa on Moloka'i to bring a concert to those who still live at the Hansen's disease colony. They returned over the weekend and plunged back into rehearsals for the ordination and installation.

Under Liu's baton, the 200-person choir brought together from parishes islandwide has been rehearsing since June 26. Gathering in T-shirts and shorts, they've met four times, including yesterday, to raise voices in soaring sounds of praise and worship.

Choir members will wear aloha attire for tomorrow's ceremonies.

Many are experienced with this type of pomp and circumstance. A number participated in the installations of Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario and Bishop Francis DiLorenzo, Mondoy said. And some were part of the Damien Beatification Choir of 1995.

For Pam Metzger, 65, who spent last week in Kalaupapa for the concert and community work there, excitement is mounting.

"I can just picture singing in the Blaisdell and being very joyous," said Metzger, who sings for the love of it and plans to wear a mu'umu'u and comfortable shoes tomorrow.

"We're just so happy it's him," added Metzger, who came to Hawai'i from England 47 years ago when her husband took a job with a Volkswagen dealership. "I've known of him for many years and he's going to be so good for us all, good for the priests and good for the people. I think he'll listen well and be very understanding and have a firm hand.

"We're in troubling times. So much is going on in the world, and we need so much reassurance from our church."