Workshop 1: All Together Now
Level: Beginner/Intermediate
*Being able to read simple tablature will be needed, but the parts will range from very basic to moderate.
Let’s take playing together to the next level! In this workshop you will be placed into sections according to your ability and discover how to take three or four separate parts, put them together, and create something that in the end will create a joyful noise indeed! Attention will be paid to the use of dynamics, tempo and phrasing. Those taking the bass ukulele workshop will learn their part during that time, then join with the rest for the final presentation
Workshop 2: Give Peace A Chance
Level: Beginner/Intermediate
* Ability to move easily between chords in the keys of C, F, G and A
Songs of Protest were an important part of the ‘60s. Using several of these songs from this era, Kate will work with you to move past basic chording to make people sit up and listen: finding the strum style that’s most appropriate; using ‘tricks’ to draw attention to a particular area such as chunks (stops), ‘rasgueado’ (roll-type strum), simple harmonics, and silences; creating an intro/extro to ‘set up’ the song; how to transpose into a key appropriate to your voice!
Workshop 3: Let The Sunshine In
Level: All
* Playing along to a varied selection of songs from the days of Freedom, Peace and Love
Get out your tie-dye and bell bottoms and relive the days of the Summer of Love! You’ll be feelin’ groovy in no time as you strum along to songs from the Age of Aquarius – and you won’t have to go to San Francisco to do it!
KATE FERRIS
Manitoba-born Kate Ferris has been performing since, at the age of 5, the bus she and her Ma were travelling in got stuck in a storm, and Kate entertained the passengers in the back of the bus -including 3 very nice Nuns - with her own songs and stories. (She would like to think that her material has improved greatly since then – but she DID get a chocolate bar from one of the Nuns, so who knows . . .)
She’d played with the ukulele since attending a conference held by her friend Manitoba Hal Brolund in 2004, but it wasn’t until Kate and her husband – luthier Fred Casey – attended the Aloha Music Camp in Kona, Hawaii in 2009 that Kate truly fell in love with the little instrument. Since then she has attended two AMCs in Hawaii, taken instruction from Mark Nelson, James Hill and Raiatea Helm, is Director Emeritus of the Winnipeg Ukulele Club,has written songs for ukulele, developed an Ukulele program for the Winnipeg Folk Festival’s Folk School from 2012 to 2018, has been the Director for the Winnipeg Arts Council’s Ukulele Mass Appeal events, given ukulele workshops across the province, and has this year started teaching `ukulele classes as part of the Home Routes/Chemin Chez Nous team. In fact, she’s been known to sit playing her uke in her car as it goes through the carwash! She can’t wait to share her love of the mighty ukulele with you!
After teaching Elementary Music for 11 years, Kate quit to pursue her dream of performing and has been chasing that dream across Canada ever since, as a solo artist and in groups such as folk trio Small Rooms, Canadian Content Theatre Co. and The Blarney Band. She has appeared on national TV and Radio, sung on assorted recordings, has twice been guest storyteller with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and performed at Children’s and Folk Festivals across the country. In 2015 she released her CD “Marie’s Forest”, and in 2017 released “Prairie Girl’s Song”, an illustrated book of one of her songs.