Sunday, September 30, 2018

Some of our members attended the Prairie Jamboree Ukulele Festival hosted by the Ukulele Club of Winnipeg at the Viscount Gort September 28-30th.

Heather, Lorna, Lana, Louise, Zenith, Thelma and Verna took part in a number of workshops featuring instruction from two-time Grammy Award Winners Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer from Washington D.C., edUkecator Kevin Carroll from Austin, Texas, Ukester Brown from Apple Valley, Minnesota, and KateFerris and Fred Casey from Gimli, Manitoba.

The event began Friday evening with the opening ceremonies, an open mic and a jam circle. After fantastic workshops on a wide variety of ukulele playing topics throughout the day on Saturday, attendees and the public were invited to a gala concert on Saturday at the beautiful and acoustically outstanding Crescent Fort Rouge church. Performances by the guest instructors, the Prairie Aloha group and the Brandon Ukulele Club were followed by another fun ukulele jam circle back at the Viscount Gort. 

Heather, Zenith, David Remiger aka Ukester Brown, Lana, Lorna and Louise.

On Sunday morning participants were invited to take part in a Hallelujah Hootenanny where Ukester Brown led those assembled in some rousing gospel tunes, explaining some of the background on the tunes along the way.  

While some guests stayed for the Ukulele Club of Winnipeg's twice monthly Strum & Suds at the Viscount Gort, Heather was pleased to drive David Remiger out to Carman to meet some of our members at Syl's for lunch.

Since it was cold out we took our Syl's food to the school where we ate in the library (don't tell the librarian!). We then moved to the music room where David showed us warm up stretches to help prevent pain while playing ukulele and gave us a very enlightening workshop on playing moveable chords.

Attending the ukulele festival and our Carman visit with Ukester Brown was an informative and fun experience. I was pleased to drive David back to the airport where he jetted off back to his wife in Minnesota. David said they both may make a visit out to Manitoba - perhaps to take in our Boyne River Ukulele Picnic and Strum - now that Ukester knows where to find Carman.  

It sounds like a second Prairie Jamboree Ukulele Festival is planned for 2020 so stay tuned for more information.