Utah Ukulele Festival

Despite the rainy weather Saturday, the second annual Utah Ukulele Festival was held at Willow Park, with about 25 vendors, nine performers and ukulele lessons throughout the day.

The Ukulele Festival was started last year by David Manoa and Jeffrey Olsen. Manoa is Hawaiian and he was born and raised in Maui with his dad and learned the ukulele through him.

Olsen, who is from Washington, lived in Hawaii for a while and went to school there as well. When Manoa and Olsen came to Cache Valley, they realized there wasn’t anything catered towards the Polynesian culture, so they decided to do something about it.

Manoa and Olsen really loved the culture and feel of Hawaii and they wanted to bring that feeling to Cache Valley for everyone to experience and enjoy. They put in the idea to the city and filled out the required paper work and had their first festival last summer. It did so well they decided to make it an annual event.

“This year we were surprised at just how many people came out of the woodwork just to ask to be a part of it,” said Denelle Manoa, David’s wife, who also volunteered for the festival.

At 10 a.m. they started the festival with the group “J.E.D.” (Jeff, Earl and Dave) performing first up on the main stage and children’s ukulele lessons under the pavilion.

Children’s lessons continued until 1 p.m. and then moved to beginner, intermediate and advanced lessons. Meikjn Fielding started at 10 for the first hour of children’s lessons. She has only played the ukulele for one year and she was really excited to be teaching it to children.

Ohana Ukuleles donated some ukuleles for children to use during the lessons. On the main stage there were performers every hour on the hour for the crowd’s enjoyment and for the opportunity to hear and enjoy music from a ukulele.

There were also open-mic performances, sponsored by KSM Music, and a raffle for the opportunity to win a ukulele donated by Ohana Ukuleles.

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