The eighth annual Aurora Ukulele Festival in the city over the weekend was a perfect fit for Charlotte Behrens of Mount Carroll, who took up the instrument because she needed something to stimulate her brain and keep her fingers nimble.
“I just keep learning something new to add on,” she said at the fest. “There’s a whole culture to this. Music brings everybody together. It’s a common language, so we don’t have to speak the same language through our mouths, it comes from our hearts.”
The City of Lights Ukulele Festival Society offered the event, complete with a number of changes that built upon a year ago when the fest was moved from Water Street Mall in downtown Aurora to Two Brothers Roundhouse at 205 N. Broadway in the city.
For the first time, the fest became a two-day event, opening Saturday and featuring performances, while Sunday involved a series of workshops.
Co-chairman of the festival Mark Strausberger said the decision to move to a two-day event was driven by “having performances on Saturday and all workshops on Sunday.”
“What we were finding was that the majority of people coming were enjoying the workshops maybe even a little more than they were enjoying the performances because they were learning from professionals,” he said. “We broke it up, and we actually have sold more tickets for the workshops than the performances.”
More than 150 tickets were sold online for the fest before the weekend event. Strausberger said with walk-ups, things could be limited as the Roundhouse area “holds around 240 people where we’re having this.”
“This was the best decision we’ve made, moving in there,” he said of the Roundhouse. “And if we start to outgrow it, we’ll have to start searching for something else.”
Strausberger said the event included an open-mic set up “so people can come in and sign up and play.”
Sunday’s workshop program was already going full bore before the scheduled 11 a.m. start time as more than two dozen players were inside the Roundhouse area enjoying a pre-class song fest.
Aaron Baer of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, said he planned to offer a class later and that this was his fourth year in attendance at the Aurora festival.
“I keep coming back,” Baer said. “It’s just a blast. The energy is great and we haven’t even started yet and we have a whole bunch of people here jamming already.
“The performers are great, the classes are great,” he said “It’s just a well put together, established festival. A lot of it is about the fellowship and the connectivity people feel which is the difference between the ukulele and most other instruments. You can get 30 ukulele players together and they’re all going to be smiling and having fun – no egos.”
Charmaine Reynolds took up playing the ukulele two years ago and has since found it to be a good way to meet people as well as have fun.
“I took this up because I used to be a singer with the international singing group Sweet Adelines and my husband was a barbershop singer and that’s how we met one another,” she said Sunday morning. “I thought this would be a great way to sing and accompany myself. I play almost every day.”
Kathryn Kussro of Batavia said she has been taking ukulele lessons for more than 10 years.
“My instructor is great and I love the fellowship. It’s great,” she said. “For those people on the fence thinking about playing, my advice is: four strings. We can play everything from classical to pop. I play the guitar but I enjoy the ukulele more.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
