The winners of the Koyama Kings Road to Cairns Ukulele Festival music video competition, Melbourne based ukulele orchestra Uke4Kids Family Orchestra (UFO) have launched a crowd source funding Pozible campaign Get the Kids to Cairns, which aims to fly 11 kids up to Cairns in time for the Cairns Ukulele Festival (1 to 6 July 2014).
UFO’s rendition of Vance Joy’s Riptide attracted 531 votes in the hotly contested battle for a slot on the Cairns Ukulele Festival program, winning the opportunity to perform on the same program as Abe Lagrimas Jr, six-time Grammy award winner Daniel Ho and the Janet Seidel Trio.
Uke4Kids Directors Dassana and Yanai Morris entered their orchestra as a good opportunity to make a music video and be seen with no thought of actually winning. Now they have their fantastic orchestra simply has to get to Cairns. It will mean an enormous amount to these talented kids and the Uke4Kids team.
UFO Director, Yanai Morris, has been teaching Melbourne children to play the ukulele since 2008 with over 1000 kids playing ukulele, and now has a small army of highly enthusiastic young players who perform regularly at festivals and concerts.
Yanai said, ‘Our Uke4Kids program offers an exciting and affordable alternative for parents wanting to give their kids a good quality music education on a fun and easy to learn instrument.’
‘Not only that, it teaches young people to work together, instills discipline in a fun way and increases the kids’ confidence.’
The 11 strong group, which is comprised of some of the most talented and enthusiastic students from Uke4Kids program, never fails to impress audiences with their contemporary repertoire, sophisticated arrangements and high energy performances.
These kids come from hugely diverse backgrounds. They are all under 10, work really hard and at the same time are normal, fun loving youngsters.
It costs a fair bit to fly to Cairns on such short notice, which is why a Pozible crowd funding campaign via the Uke4Kids website is now running. The target is $10,600 to cover part of the cost of flights and accommodation for the group. This ends in just 7 days on the 27th June so time is of the essence.
‘The UFO kids are over the moon to have won the competition and we hope that we can raise the necessary funds to get the kids to Cairns.’ Yanai said.
Marketing manager of Koyama Ukuleles Australia Anthony Zaccaria said ‘We were blown away with the response to our Koyama Kings competition; not just the number of entries, but the quality of videos submitted, which was outstanding.’
‘Uke groups from around the country got really creative and went to a lot of effort to record their songs – it just goes to show how loved the ukulele is.’ Andrew said.
Gaby Thomasz, Cairns Ukulele Festival Director said, We really hope that people will get behind this campaign so Uke4Kids can claim their spot on the festival program.’
‘This win illustrates that people of all ages connect through the ukulele, the happiest instrument on earth.’ Gaby said.
Now In its fifth year, the Cairns Ukulele Festival was recently described as the ‘Everest of Ukefests’, attracting more than 3500 people in 2013, including fans from the United States of America, Europe, Singapore, New Zealand and Japan.
For more info on the Uke4Kids Family Orchestra go to
http://uke4kids.com/orchestra/get-the-kids-to-cairns/