This Year’s artist
We are excited to welcome Stu Fuchs, Amy Kucharik, Petey Mack, Devin Scott and Ally McNatt
Stu Fuchs (ukulele zen)
Stu Fuchs is an award winning musician and teaching artist, empowering people of all backgrounds to express themselves through creative play. A “classically trained, improvisational freed multi-instrumentalist”, Stu blends mindfulness and music at his annual “Ukulele Zen” retreat held at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck NY. His YouTube channel “Ukulele Zen” offers holistic ukulele lessons to over 100,000 subscribers. In 2014 Stuart was awarded a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts for his work bringing healing music to cancer patients at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo NY, where he was a professional artist in residence for eight years. Stu’s Gypsy Jazz band “Babik” performed in concert halls across North America and with symphonic orchestras and he has toured to three continents playing classical guitar and ukulele with the internationally acclaimed new age Kirtan artist Snatam Kaur. Stuart’s meditative guitar playing was featured on Snatam Kaur’s Grammy Award nominated Best New Age Album “Beloved.”.
Amy Kucharik
Amy Kucharik [/kuh-CHAR-ick/] energizes swing dances, festivals and listening rooms alike. Amy performs as a one-woman band with ukulele, tenor guitar, foot percussion, mouth trumpet and harmonica, or with bands featuring top New England musicians. Combining poignant lyrics and a danceable swing, Amy’s music has drawn comparisons to Maria Muldaur, Lake Street Dive, and Anais Mitchell. She draws from blues and Vaudeville traditions, musical theatre, 80s pop and world music with a street-smart stagecraft honed in the subways of Boston. Amy was a winner of the Kerrville New Folk songwriting competition in 2015. She teaches ukulele in the Boston area and has performed and taught at multiple regional and national ukulele festivals. She is a Mi-Si Electronics performing artist. She recently composed the score of an interactive, immersive, musical tiki adventure called “Cthulhu Luau.”
Petey Mack
Pete has been live streaming on Facebook for years, attracting fans from all over the world. He has created a massive number of songs in his free downloadable song book, which he uses in his streaming so everyone can join in.
Pete has been leading strum sessions all over the world at ukulele festivals and has a tremendous number of friends because of his social media and traveling and has also been leading strum sessions at his local Memphis Ukulele Flash Mob get togethers for quite a few years.
Pete’s approach to the ukulele follows his K.I.S.S. theory: keep it simple, and strum, meaning make every thing as simple as you can, and most importantly enjoy yourself. He tells all of his students that he only has one rule:
Yah gotta have FUN!
Ally McNatt and Devin Scott
Ally and Devin are great and a bio is coming soon
