Start planning your summer learning and perfecting your ukulele skills! UkeFest Artistic Directors Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer return along with Aaron Keim, Jim Beloff, Daniel Ho, and Jeff Peterson for 5 days dedicated to this small-but-mighty instrument.
Registration includes 8 hours of skill-based classes, 9 hours of choose-your-own classes, jam sessions, admission to the student and instructor showcase, and a grand finale Live from the Lawn performance. For those looking for intensive skill development, Strathmore’s UkeFest is the only program of its kind that offers an advanced track.
Included in Tuition:
- 8 hours of skill-based classes
- 9 hours of Choose Your Own class sessions
- Jam sessions
- Admission to the Faculty Showcase Concert
- Admission to the Student Open Mic
- 17th Annual UkeFest t-shirt
Limited weekend passes are also available. Please click here to purchase a Saturday and Sunday only UkeFest registration.
Weekend passholders receive:
6 classes (2 skills-based morning classes and 4 afternoon walk-in classes)
2 jam sessions
2 evening student/faculty showcase concerts
1 t-shirt
CLASSES & SCHEDULE
This year, we are delighted to welcome the following artists/instructors to our staff, bringing fresh perspectives, styles, and expertise to 2025:
Instructors
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Marcy Marxer is a GRAMMY Award winning multi-instrumentalist who has been teaching ukulele since 1986. Her “Ukulele For Kids” online courses have brought up a few generations of young ukulele players. She has directed a seniors uke orchestra, taught at prominent Uke and Music Camps and is co-artistic director of Strathmore’s UkeFest. Marcy specializes in chord melody, swing and jazz uke, but plays a bit of everything! She also studied with the grand master of vaudeville, Roy Smeck. Her forte as a social music conductor is only rivaled by her virtuosity on over 20 instruments. Marcy teaches online through www.pegheadnation.com, www.truefire.com and www.homespun.com.
Cathy Fink is a GRAMMY Award winning multi-instrumentalist and co-artistic director of Strathmore’s UkeFest with Marcy Marxer. She loves teaching all levels and has created a series of courses on playing Clawhammer Ukulele, kin to the old-time banjo style. Cathy has taught at countless music camps including Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Midwest Ukefest, The Augusta Workshops, and Palm Springs Ukefest. Cathy & Marcy released two duo recordings of all ukulele music, “Rockin’ The Uke” and “Wahoo.” They have released a total of fifty albums between them and over 50 instructional courses on ukulele, banjo, guitar, mandolin, harmony singing, and even yodeling. Her online instruction is available at www.truefire.com, www.homespun.com, and www.pegheadnation.com. She has written numerous articles for Ukulele Magazine.
Aaron Keim
Aaron Keim is a historian, luthier and musician from Hood River, Oregon.
Aaron has been teaching ukulele and banjo techniques and performing at festivals since 2004. As an educator with a bachelor’s degree in music education and a master’s degree in Musicology, his true talent lies in his ability to adapt instruction to fit a wide range of learners and learning styles.
Aaron is an ambassador for old time folk music in the ukulele world, adapting banjo and guitar techniques to the ukulele (including playing in the “clawhammer” tradition). His YouTube instructional videos and instructional books have gained a worldwide following and have led to teaching and performing opportunities in N. America, England, Europe, New Zealand and Australia.
Aaron is also a luthier, building Beansprout Musical Instruments since 2007. Aaron has written for Ukulele Magazine, The Fretboard Journal, Mortise & Tenon Magazine and more.
Jim Beloff
Jim Beloff (pronounced bee-loff) is the author of The Ukulele—A Visual History (Backbeat Books) and author, arranger, and publisher of the Jumpin’ Jim’s series of ukulele songbooks with over 1,000,000 copies in print. This series is available worldwide and includes The Daily Ukulele, one of the biggest and best-selling ukulele songbooks ever published. All Jumpin’ Jim’s songbooks are distributed by Hal Leonard LLC. In December 2021, Backbeat books published Jim’s memoir, UKEtopia—Adventures in the Ukulele World. In November 2024, The Daily Ukulele: Another Year was released. This highly anticipated edition of “yet another” 365 songs is the third songbook in the series.
Jim produced Legends of Ukulele, a CD compilation for Rhino Records, and has made three how-to-play DVDs for Homespun. He is also an active songwriter and has released a number of CDs. His two-CD set, Dreams I Left in Pockets, features 33 songs he wrote or co-wrote with uke legends, Herb “Ohta-san” Ohta and Lyle Ritz. His most recent album, The Wind and Sun, was released in August 2020 and a new album, Mid-Century Modern, is expected to be released sometime in 2025.
In 1999, Jim composed and premiered Uke Can’t Be Serious, a concerto for solo ukulele and symphony orchestra. Since then, the piece has been performed with both high school and professional orchestras, including the Michigan Philharmonic in 2016. He has also performed it many times with a string quartet. His second concerto for ukulele and orchestra, The Dove Tale, premiered in 2017 with the Wallingford (Connecticut) Symphony Orchestra.
Jim and his wife, Liz Maihock Beloff, own Flea Market Music, Inc., a company dedicated to the ukulele and they play their family’s Fluke, Flea, and Firefly ukes. They have toured Japan, Australia and Canada and believe in their company’s motto, “Uke Can Change the World.”
Visit Jim online at www.fleamarketmusic.com and facebook.com/jimbeloffmusic.
Daniel Ho
Originally from Honolulu and based in Los Angeles, Daniel Ho is an ʻukulele pioneer, Hawaiian slack key guitarist, pianist, composer, singer-songwriter, producer, audio engineer, and record company owner. He is a six-time GRAMMY® Award winner, twelve-time GRAMMY® Nominee, six-time Taiwanese Golden Melody Award winner, and recipient of multiple Hawaiian music honors.
Daniel made ‘ukulele history when his solo album of fingerstyle compositions Pōlani (Pure), was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award in 2010. His ‘ukulele-toting collaborations transcend genres, and his recordings span from traditional and contemporary Hawaiian music to world music with Taiwanese aboriginals and Mongolian nomads, to duets with Pepe Romero the maestro of classical guitar, to contemporary jazz and rock with Tak Matsumoto of the Japanese supergroup, B’z. His music has also been featured in film and television (The Descendants, Soul Surfer, Carlos, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Waterman, Hawaiʻi Five-O, NCIS: Hawaiʻi).
As an artist and clinician, Daniel performs concerts and teaches workshops in North America and abroad. He has toured as a cultural ambassador and arts envoy for the U.S. Department of State to Asia, Australia, Greenland, Mexico, and Brazil. He is the co-designer of the Romero Creations Tiny Tenor ‘ukulele, and Ohana Bongolele and Shakerlele percussion instruments. Daniel’s Spalted Mango Tiny Tenor ‘ukulele is currently on display at the GRAMMY® Museum in Los Angeles.
His newest endeavor to spread the love of making music: the ʻEkolu ʻukulele. Ask him about it and he’ll light up at the opportunity to share!
Jeff Peterson
Born on the Island of Maui, two-time Grammy Award nominee and fourteen-time Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award winner Jeff Peterson grew up on the slopes of Haleakalā where he was introduced to the rich heritage of Hawaiian music by his father, a paniolo, or Hawaiian cowboy, on the Haleakalā Ranch. He went on to study guitar and music composition at the University of Southern California and the University of Hawaiʻi in Mānoa. He has studied with a variety of teachers including Keola Beamer, Ozzie Kotani, Lisa Smith, Benjamin Verdery, Larry Koonse, Jamie Findlay, Richard Smith, Benny Chong, and Joe Diorio.
As a performer, Jeff has had the honor to work with a wide range of artists and groups including Eric Clapton, Keola Beamer, James Galway, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Aaron Neville, Boz Scaggs, Amy Hanaialiʻi, Ledward Kaapana, Hindustani slide guitar master Debashish Bhattacharya, the Honolulu Symphony, Hawaii Opera Theatre, The Nashville Symphony Orchestra, jazz bassist Rufus Reid, shakuhachi master Riley Lee, Taiko master Kenny Endo, and with many other artists in the fields of Hawaiian, classical, and jazz music. He has released ten solo guitar recordings featuring his slack key artistry, Mele Nahenahe, Ka Nani O Ki Ho’alu, Wahi Pana, Oʻahu, Slack Key Travels, Maui On My Mind, Kahealani, Slack Key Jazz, The Artistry of Jeff Peterson, and Pure Slack Key. He is also featured as a performer and arranger on the 2008 and 2009 Grammy Nominated recordings ʻAumakua and Friends and Family of Hawaiʻi by Amy Hanaialiʻi. His solo album Ka Nani O Kī Hoʻalu won two Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards in 2020. His next album Mele Nahenahe won two Hoku awards in 2022. He is a featured artist on recordings by artists including Keola Beamer, Nathan Aweau, Riley Lee, Matt Catingub, Raiatea Helm, Teresa Bright, Debashish Bhattacharya, and Kealiʻi Reichel. He composed and performed the first-ever concerto for slack key guitar and orchestra titled Malama ʻAina in 2016 and has performed the piece with orchestras including the Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra and the Maui Pops Orchestra. In addition to regular tours across the US and abroad, he performs regularly online on CrowdCast.com featuring new programs each Wednesday. He new release Paniolo Son features new music for slack key guitar and is a tribute to his father and the paniolo heritage on Maui.
He has traveled to Europe, South America, Asia, Australia, Africa, India, and across the United Sates to perform at a variety of venues from Symphony Space in New York City to the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe to the Oriental Arts Center Symphony Hall in Shanghai to the National Folk Festival in Canberra, Australia. In addition to performing, he taught the guitar at the University of Hawaiʻi for seven years running the guitar program and has been a featured teacher at workshops across Hawaiʻi, the US mainland, and abroad. He has created the Slack Key Workshop at JeffPetersonGuitar.com and UkuleleCorner.com for online resources for learning the traditions of Hawaiian Slack Key guitar and ʻukulele and has transcribed extensive catalogs of both slack key guitar and ʻukulele music in an effort to preserve and perpetuate these traditions. He recently published a new book of Hawaiian Repertoire for ʻukulele featuring 60 arrangements of traditional and original songs.
Jeff achieved a milestone in Hawaiian music at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards on February 13th, 2005, when a recording on Palm Records featuring Jeff and other island artists, Slack Key Guitar Volume 2, won the first ever Grammy Award for best Hawaiian recording. His solo recording Maui On My Mind was nominated for a Grammy in 2011. Five of his songs were featured in the film The Descendants starring George Clooney.
August 9 UkeFest Evening Faculty Showcase
Enjoy an evening performance by this year’s stellar UkeFest Instructors. As a UkeFest attendee, you will automatically get into the showcase with your UkeFest badge. Anyone who is not a UkeFest attendee will need to purchase a ticket.
August 9 UkeFest Evening Faculty Showcase
Enjoy an evening performance by this year’s stellar UkeFest Instructors. As a UkeFest attendee, you will automatically get into the showcase with your UkeFest badge. Anyone who is not a UkeFest attendee will need to purchase a ticket.
