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Presale ticket window is closed. Tickets are available Friday evening and Saturday morning at the door!
Enjoy a weekend celebrating the ukulele as a friendly and playful instrument at the Mendocino Coast UkeFest on Friday and Saturday, April 13 & 14. The celebration will begin with the UkeFest Kick-Off on Friday, April 13 at Redwood Coast Senior Center, 490 N Harold, Fort Bragg. The Ukulele Jam will start at 7:00PM to introduce the workshop instructors and to have some ukulele fun and sing-alongs. Instructors this year are Dennis Hudson, Mike DaSilva, Janet Lenore, and Gary Sugiyama. For this evening's event, doors open at 6:30PM. Free admission, open to all ages and levels of experience! Ukulele players and singers are welcome.
The Mendocino Coast UkeFest will thrive on Saturday, April 14, also at the Redwood Coast Senior Center, starting at 9am with coffee, tea and snacks and orientation at 9:40AM. The morning ukulele workshops will be held from 10AM until 11:30AM. With a long break for lunch, theres time to head into town to try out local restaurants or bring a lunch and hang out for a mini workshop or spontaneous jamming with friends. Afternoon workshops will run from 1:30PM to 3PM. $30 for this daytime event with workshops.
Free admission events begin at 3pm with a 90-minute open mic and then a pizza party dinner with mega salad bar for $10 starting at 5PM. Performances from 5:30-8:30PM feature The Ukeholics and the Tiny Orchestra of Boonville, The Random Holler Jug Band and other musical experiences. This evening will showcase RCSC as an event venue, with hopes of creating more community-involved performances.
A choice of two workshops is the prime offering of this Saturday gathering, bringing in experienced ukulele instructors and players from our neighboring counties and the Bay Area. Co-founder of the Caspar UkeFest, Dennis Hudson returns as an instructor with his workshop "Ukulele Right Hand" for Intermediate level. He says, "Let go of your left hand for an hour and join a discussion about right hand techniques, responsibilities and health. A Beginners class will be led by Mike DaSilva of Berkeley with a couple Beatles songs. Janet Lenore from the East Bay, will put the rocking riff of a 12-bar blues under your fingers in her Blues and Riffs workshop. In the fourth workshop offered, learn the "Hawai'ian vamp" and more from Gary Sugiyama of Santa Rosa, as you sing along to traditional Hawai'ian and hapa haole songs, maybe with a couple of hulas thrown in.
Another feature of this festival is the vendors who will display their wares for sale. This includes pins, magnets, prints and tea towels from our fanciful ukulele artist, Peter Gealey; Icons with ukulele accessories; Laurence White offers used instruments and onsite repair; David Dart, luthier of fine ukuleles and other stringed instruments; and various CDs from instructors and performers.
After a years hiatus to regroup and reinvigorate, the ukulele festival returns to the Mendocino Coast! The festival ran from 2012 2016 as the Caspar UkeFest. Last year the baton was passed to the Ukiah UkeTones who took it on and made it their own. Now the Coast has the baton and is partnering with the Redwood Coast Senior Center in Fort Bragg. There are two big rooms for workshops, a wide hallway for vendors of instruments and accessories, and the dining room for meals and entertainment.
The Senior Center has been very generous to offer its beautiful facility for the UkeFest and ongoing ukulele group practice sessions on Monday afternoons as well as ukulele instruction workshops. Contact Pattie at 707-937-1732 or uke@mcn.org for more information.
INSTRUCTORS:
JANET LENORE
Before she was out of high school, Janet Lenore was a guitar teacher, performing songwriter, and a multi-instrumentalist. In recent years, Janet has given workshops and performances at the Napa Valley Ukulele Festival, "Ukes On the Loose (Healdsburg), the Santa Cruz Ukulele Club, "Burning Uke," the San Francisco Free Folk Festival and Smoldering Uke. She has lead or co-lead large ukulele jams at the Kate Wolf Music Festival, Berkeley Ukulele Club, Bronco Billy's Fremont Ukulele jam, and the Alameda Ukulele Club. The venerable music camp Puget Sound Guitar
Workshop (PSGW) has twice had Janet teach a week of guitar and ukulele classes. Janet served on the Board of Directors for the California Coast Music Camp for fourteen years and annually manages an acoustic stage at the Palo Alto Festival of the Arts. Known for her quirky and often humorous original songs, Janet released her ukulele-centric CD, "Pie & Four Other Tasty Treats," in 2014. Her home and music teaching practice is in the East Bay.
GARY SUGIYAMA has played with several groups accompanying hula presentations in the North Bay. He has played at the North Bay Ukulele festival and is a member of the Bohemian Ukuleles, who performed at the 2016 Ukulele Festival at Kapiolani Park in Waikiki. Gary is active with several ukulele clubs in Sonoma County and has led workshops at the Sebastopol Ukulele Festival, Ukes on the Loose, the Sonoma County Bluegrass and Folk Festival, and the Napa Aloha Festival. He can also be heard on the soundtrack of the documentary, Leap of Faith by Lina Hoshino, with the Sonoma County band, New Skye.
Kanikapila 101
Learn the "Hawai'ian vamp", the meaning of "Ha'ina mai ka puana" and more, as you sing along to traditional Hawai'ian and hapa haole songs. We may throw in a couple of hulas as well. If time allows we can explore some jazz chord substitutions and turnarounds, and an approach to playing off the page.
DENNIS HUDSON returns as an instructor with his workshop "Ukulele Right Hand" for Intermediate level. He says, "Let go of your left hand for an hour and join a discussion about right hand techniques, responsibilities and health.
"We will be breaking down the strum cycle into basic components then reassembling them in simple patterns that create the illusion of complexity. I have heard it said, Your left hand is what you know but your right hand is who you are. With this in mind I will present material that will give you new ideas about how you play the songs you love."
MIKE DaSILVA
Michael DaSilva builds hand-crafted ukulele and teaches ukulele lessons in Berkeley, CA.
www.ukemaker.com <http://www.ukemaker.com>
*Basic Ukulele and a Beatles Song*
Learn the essential proper techniques needed to practice and play the ukulele for full musical enjoyment, with ergonomic efficiency and accelerated learning.These comprehensive techniques will get you off to a great start and provide a solid foundation for all future ukulele playing. Michael DaSilva will show you specific left hand and right hand techniques and thought processes that will add musical interest to your playing, improve playing accuracy and coordination, as well as develop good practice habits and minimize need for memorization.
We will then use these learning and playing techniques to learn and perform a wonderful Beatles tune written by Paul McCartney.
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LocationRedwood Coast Senior Center (View)
490 N Harold St
Fort Bragg, CA 95437
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 10 |
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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