By Parker McKenzie
Emerald Primary School will become the stage for the Hills Ukulele Festival on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 May, featuring international guests, local artists and workshops for the local community to take part in.
Festival organizer Dan MacEoin said the first Ukulele Festival was held in 2018 after he was inspired by his students.
“I’m the music teacher at Emerald Primary School and for a number of years I was using the ukulele in the classroom room as a teaching tool and a fun way of bringing music to life,” he said.
“The kids who really enjoyed it, they wanted more. We had some afternoon after-school lessons and they got so good they wanted to create a band, so here we go with the Emerald Primary School Ukulele orchestra.”
He said after forming the Ukulele Orchestra, he decided to create a Ukulele Festival to ensure they had a place to perform.
“This year we’ve got 35 groups performing at the festival across three stages, we convert the school into a festival extravaganza,” he said.
“The three stages go nonstop from 10am in the morning till 6pm at night on Sunday 21 May, which is a completely free event.”
On Saturday 20 May, attendees will be required to buy a $25 ticket to attend the concerts or a $70 ticket to take part in the workshops, however, all concerts and events on Sunday 21 May are free.
Mr MacEoin said the headliner for the concert is RIO, who is being flown in from Japan.
“He’ll be taking a workshop during the Saturday as well, one of nine workshops on the day,” he said.
“It’s jam-packed with amazing opportunities for people to come along and go, that’s exactly the workshop I wanted.”
Other headliners include Duplicity, Green Fieldz, Karin Udovenya, Sam Lemann, Jane Cameron, Awkward Strangers, Morgana Creely, Yanai Morris and Mr MacEoin himself.
He said on Sunday 21 May at 12pm, there will be a free workshop for kids run by Yanai Morris.
“He is an incredible musician and a really talented teacher who gets beginners feeling confident and feeling like they can take on the world with the Ukulele,” Mr MacEoin said.
“The most common feedback I receive is they love the community feel and how welcoming everyone is made to feel when they arrive.”
Mr MacEoin said on Sunday 28 May, an International Hills Festival will be live-streamed.
“In 2020, we all went into lockdown and we’d organized a live festival and had a month to turn into an online one,” he said.
“The ukulele world became a very small place, and we all connected and we had artists sending in their videos. We didn’t want to say goodbye to all our friends, so we’ll be taking the highlights from the live festival and adding the videos people have sent in from Italy, Spain, the USA, the UK, Indonesia, France and the rest of Australia.”
For more information on the 2023 Hills Ukulele Festival, visit hillsukulelefestival.au
