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Welcome to the
Big Island Ukulele Guild
Welcome to the new site of the Big Island Ukulele Guild. We are a group of builders and ukulele enthusiasts on The Big Island of Hawaii dedicated to the promotion of ukulele building. The current membership is about 30 builders The information on this site changes frequently, so please check back from time to time.
New Events:
Next Meeting
The next meeting of the Guild will be on Jan 23rd in the Keaau district. Our host will be Robin Gleason of Island Traditions Instruments. The topic will be "Factors that effect tonal range response" presented by Stephen Neil of Salmon River Guitars in Idaho. Also bring an ukulele for the kanikapila afterwards. As always, the meeting is open to every one and is a potluck. Please bring a chair and dish to share. We will be starting at 11:30 with the business meeting and the general meeting at noon until around 4pm. For more information, email us.
The Big Island Ukulele Guild's 6th Annual Show
The 6th Big Island Ukulele Guild Member's show took place on the weekend of Nov. 13, 14 & 15. The show was presented at the Kona Inn Shopping Center in downtown Kona on Alii Dr. The show featured handmade ukulele's built by members for the guild as well as vintage and "different" ukuleles. Also on display were this year's instruments built for the Ukuleles for Young Musicians project. The BIUG would like to thank the Kona Inn Shopping Center for the use of this space.
The Big Island Ukulele Guild was recently featured in a front page article in West Hawaii Today. The story was about our Ukulele for Young Musicians project. To see the article, click here.
The Ukulele Builder's Workshop is a television program produced by the Ukulele Guild of Hawaii. While it is not available on the big island, it can be viewed on 'Olelo Community Programming on the internet. A new show is broadcast every month and runs for the whole month. However, the shows are archived on the net and can be watched at any time. To see the list of shows, click on this link to 'OleloNet On Demand. Select the show you want at the bottom of the page and click on 'video'. Some great information and interesting guests.
Inlay Workshop with Aaron Oya of Koaloha Ukuleles
Ukuleles for Young Musicians
2008 was a great year for the Guild as we completed our Ukuleles for Young Musicians project which resulted in almost 20 Koa Tenor ukes being donated to Kids across the island. This was a great experience for our members as it got the newer builders into the action and gave our old pros a chance to share information with them. This was followed up by our 5th Annual Show and the presentations of the ukuleles to the kids. Many thanks to Bob Gleason, Gerald Santiago and Chuck Moore for their hard work and leadership.
The Ukuleles for Young Musicians project will continue again this year. For more information on this year's project and how to nominate a young musician go to our Ukuleles for Young Musicians webpage.
Builder's Tips
Thanks to the generosity of our master builder Bob Gleason, we have expanded our Builders tips section to include all the information Bob has published on his website Pegasus Guitars & Ukuleles
To view our expanded Builders tips area, Click here
Big Island Ukulele Guild's 5th Annual Show
The 5th Annual Big Island Ukulele Guild Show was held from November 7th-15th at the Holualoa Ukulele Gallery in Holualoa, Hawaii. The opening reception was held on Saturday November 8th from 6-9PM. On display were the instruments from our 2008 Ukuleles for Young Musicians Project, as well as a variety of instruments from Guild members. In addition we had some great food and a kanikapila session, shown below.
For further info about the Big Island Ukulele Guild, please contact us at pegasusguitars@hawaiiantel.net