The G.G George Family proudly present the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at the North Iowa Community Auditorium on the NIACC campus at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 28^th. This presentation is part of the 2023-2024 Performing Arts and Leadership Series.

Opening for the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is a selection of Mason City School District’s Harding Elementary students playing ukuleles. The group of 25 students, taught by Allison Day, will be performing excerpts from “Best Day of my Life”, “Rockin’ Robin”, “Don’t Worry Be Happy”, “Yakety Yak”, “Imagine/Hallelujah”, “Thunder”, and “Til There Was You”. Students included are: Simon Peterson, Ryker Sprecher, Olivia Johnson, Hazel Frye, Lyla Thorson, Abby Kmoch, Alisson Gutierrez Quevedo, Aubrey Murphy, Jack Stricker, Addy Linderman, Addy True, Cora May, Owen Hergert, River Redies, Chance Peterson, Lily Kopps, Charlotte Armitage, Madelyn Kudej, Jameson Bredeson, Zander Kopps, Ryleigh Elings, Cami Campbell, Teghan Hamilton, Ari Stricker, and Lyla Davies.

Created in 1985 by Kitty Lux and George Hinchliffe, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is a group of all-singing, all-strumming Ukulele players, using instruments bought with loose change, which believes that all genres of music are available for reinterpretation, as long as they are played on the Ukulele.

A concert by the Ukulele Orchestra is a funny, virtuosic, twanging, awesome, foot-stomping obituary of rock-n-roll and melodious light entertainment featuring only the “bonsai guitar” and a menagerie of voices in a collision of post-punk performance and toe-tapping oldies. There are no drums, pianos, backing tracks or banjos, no pitch shifters or electronic trickery. Only an astonishing revelation of the rich palette of orchestration afforded by ukuleles and singing. Going from Tchaikovsky to AC/DC via The Cranberries and Spaghetti Western soundtracks, the Orchestra takes us on “a world tour with only hand luggage” and gives the listener “One Plucking Thing After Another”. Using instruments small and large, in high and low registers, whether playing intricate melodies, simple tunes, or complex chords, and sitting in chamber group format dressed in formal evening wear, the Orchestra uses the limitations of the instrument to create a musical freedom as it reveals unsuspected musical insights.

Both the beauty and vacuity of popular and highbrow music are highlighted, the pompous and the trivial, the moving and the amusing. Sometimes a foolish song can touch an audience more than high art; sometimes music which takes itself too seriously is revealed to be hilarious. The Ukes have played sold-out shows all over the world, including Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, The Royal Albert Hall and many more.

To learn more about this performance, visit their website at ukuleleorchestra.com.

For tickets to the show, call the NIACC Box Office at 641-422-4188. Tickets may also be purchased online at niacc.edu/boxoffice.

The Broadway sponsor for the 2023-2024 Performing Arts and Leadership Series is in memory of Patricia Johnston by Dr. Tom Johnston.

Platinum sponsors include Elizabeth Muse Norris Charitable Fund, Globe Gazette and the Lee Foundation, Mason City Clinic, P.C., G. G. George Family, and NSB Bank.

Gold sponsors include Drs. Doug and Melissa Summerfield, First Citizens Bank, First State Bank of Belmond, Henkel Construction Co., MBT Bank and the Hanson Family Foundation, Neurosurgery of North Iowa Drs. Beck, Bhangoo and Ondoma, North Iowa Eye Clinic P.C., the Stratford Foundation, and Sukup Manufacturing Co.

In-Kind sponsors include KIMT, North Iowa Broadcasting, KGLO, and Country Inn & Suites.