PANAMA CITY — The music room at Oakland Terrace School was filled with off-key strumming of 30 brand new ukuleles after the Bay Arts Alliance stopped by the district’s performing arts elementary school to make a special delivery Friday.
With the help of Leitz Music, Bay Arts Alliance ordered 30 multicolored Amahi ukuleles to supply the school’s new ukulele orchestra as a part of their Arts in Education program.
“You can do just about anything with a ukulele that you can do with a guitar,” said Jennifer Jones, executive director of the Alliance.
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Jones plugged in to electrify her concert ukulele, while Ronald Merritt of the Ukulele Orchestra of St. Andrews tuned his bass ukulele to show fourth- and fifth-grade students how it’s possible.
The pair performed a rendition of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” with the lyrics altered to something two which the children could relate. Some of the students sang along, while others waited patiently for their turn at strumming their new, four-stringed instruments.
The school’s ukulele class received the donation after the students were invited to play along with the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra from New Zealand when they perform at the Marina Civic Center on Jan. 20.
“We don’t particularly donate instruments, but we had an opportunity with this upcoming performance,” said Robert Wilkos, board president of the Alliance.
The Wellington orchestra made a special request to have local children accompany their performance.
“We thought, ‘We don’t know any kids ukulele bands, so we better get one started,’ ” Jones said, so the alliance went to work acquiring new ukuleles for the visual and performing arts school.
Jones gave the students a crash course on the ukulele, telling the them how the instrument made its way from Portugal to Hawaii, where it turned into an icon of quirky beach music. Students learned there are many different types of ukulele, including bass, concert, banjo, tenor and electrified ukuleles.
The ukulele is a relatively new concept for music teacher Sasha Aufschneider, whose musical background is more in singing and playing the piano.
“It’s been really cool to learn right along with them,” Aufschneider said. “They can see that it’s OK to mess up and just keep playing.”
The ukulele class is just beginning to prepare to play with the New Zealand group by learning strumming patterns and chords.
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Ukulele Orchestra of St. Andrews will help Auschneider prepare her students to perform Imagine Dragon’s “Radioactive” and another tune chosen by the New Zealand orchestra.
By January, the students plan to be a full-fledged orchestra in their own right. They have a lot to learn in the next few months, but getting new ukuleles was an exciting start.
“It was kind of like Christmas morning,” Wilkos said.