Organised by Christina Fernandes, the fifth edition of the Mahalo Ukulele Festival began with Yogalele on the Beach – a blend of gentle asana practice, a sound circle and sound healing. But the ukulele is a fun musical instrument that is a favourite among kids too. The festival was off to a musical start with a kids workshop Ukulele Adventures with Rayna and the DIY ukulele building workshop, where participants used soft drink tins to build their own instrument.
The open mic performances were going on throughout the day, with musicians flocking to the Mahalo stage from as far away as Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai and of course Goa itself. 10-year old Parthiv performed his original song about saving water, mother of two, Ashuti took to the stage for the very first time and newly forged friends who met at the festival decided to perform together.
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The day continued with Chord Gym, an intermediate workshop taught by Mahalo favourite Luv Mahtani as well as songwriting for Ukulele with multilingual performer and teacher Vaisakh Somanath. The final workshop of the day was Ukulele Therapy, a fun and supportive beginner’s session with Aditya Matkar of Ukudemy.
In the evening, the talent-packed and diverse official line up took to the stage. The Pune Uke Club got the crowd to join into their performance of ‘Riptide’ and had every ukulele in the house playing along. Big Whiskers equally engaged the crowd by assigning them singing jobs and delighted everyone with a wedding proposal live on stage.
Aditya Matkar made his debut performance right before Mahalo regular Vaisakh Somanath took to the stage and enchanted the audience with his beautiful tunes in Tamil and Malayalam. Natasha Carroll put a smile on everyone’s faces with her poignant lyrics and Akshay Chowdry mesmerized the crowd with his incredibly quick fingers that danced along his ukulele. Rum n Colas closed the festival, in what has become a Mahalo tradition. Their infectious performance had everyone singing and dancing to celebrate another beautiful day dedicated to the ukulele.
