October 27-29, 2023
Aloha! Join us for another weekend of ukulele classes, workshops and fun. Registration for 2023 is now open for the fifth Mount Airy Ukulele Retreat. It will take place in the Andy Griffith Museum Theatre (lower level of Andy Griffith Museum).
The retreat is led by musicians Kent Knorr and George Smith.
Participants in the Mount Airy Ukulele Retreat will have the chance to perform during the WPAQ Merry-Go-Round live radio broadcast which is held weekly in the Historic Earle Theatre.
Keep up with the latest information on the Surry Arts Council Facebook page.
Please email Marianna with any questions or for more information.
Mahalo!
INSTRUCTORS
George Smith
Website
George Smith started out playing flute in his middle school band and began playing guitar shortly thereafter. With a passion for rock music, he continued to pursue the guitar and other string instruments. Over the next several years, he added bass, mandolin, banjo and by 2013, ukulele to his list along with writing original music. George has played with numerous bands and has opened for acts including Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker Band and Drive By Truckers.
In 2007, after completing a degree in German, George began teaching private music lessons at Olde Mill Music in Mount Airy, NC. By 2008, he was also playing bass in Thacker Dairy Road, after filling in with several bands. Thacker Dairy Road opened for Darius Rucker and Jason Michael Carroll. George has played in numerous groups and had several CD releases. He played 6-string banjo in the band Porch Dog Revival. They released a self-titled album in 2011 and were featured on PBS’s “Song of the Mountains.” They opened for artists including Steep Canyon Rangers and Larry Keel. George left Porch Dog Revival in 2012 and began to focus on singing and songwriting. By 2013, he was playing his first solo shows. At the same time, he learned to tune pianos and got his first ukulele. Six weeks later he started his first ukulele group class – MAUI! Mount Airy Ukulele Invasion! The course was designed to have eight weeks of classes with a concert as a finale. Their first concert was in August of 2013.
In May 2014, George released his first album, “The Music of George Smith,” which is all original music. George played all of the instruments and added keyboards, programmed drums, engineering, and mixing the album to his resume.
Beginning in 2017, George added a new class – GRO Granite City Rock Orchestra to the list. This group is open to all instruments and focuses on anything rock. In August of 2018, MAUI celebrated five years with a record number of ukulele players completing an entire round of MAUI together.
Over the course of the last couple of years, two classes that formed from private lessons gradually grew to bands have begun to take more shape. Exit 8 is an acoustic five-piece band playing mostly original songs, close to the range of bluegrass. Mechanical Resonance is a seven-piece classic rock band in which George plays drums.
In addition to MAUI, GRO, Exit 8, Mechanical Resonance, private lessons and tuning, George continues to fill in with various bands and musical ensembles in the region, including the Reeves House Band which features tribute selections to Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, and the Beatles.
Kent Knorr
Website
Kent Knorr has been performing and teaching music for over 30 years. He’s an instrument collector and builder and has been a founder/member of seven different bands, played in studio on several albums and has had the privilege of traveling all over the east coast to play music.
In 2007, he founded the North Carolina Ukulele Academy, a ukulele school and shop stocked with over 300 ukuleles that offers group ukulele classes and workshops for all ages and helps students discover the joy of making music. As owner of the Academy, he has taught more than 2,000 students—of all ages and skill levels.
Having extensively studied the origins of the ukulele and traditional ukulele music, he enjoys teaching his students how to play ukulele to get the most out of the instrument. He maintains that though it has strings and surely resembles its guitar and mandolin relatives, the ukulele has special qualities and considerations—from strum weight to posture to picking style.
He enjoys teaching in a way that focuses on technique, style, the joy of jamming and aloha.
He’s been featured in North Carolina’s Our State Magazine, WRAL TV’s Tarheel Traveler, Wilmington Star News, Wrightsville Beach magazine and on the cover of EC, ECU’s Alumni Magazine. He resides in Wilmington, North Carolina and enjoys the ocean and his wife and two daughters.
Important Info:
$125 Adult Registration for ages 18 and up.
$75 Student Registration for ages 13-17.
Space is limited to 30 participants.
Registration fee includes a festival t-shirt, instructor lead workshops and classes, and more.
$25 of the registration fee is non-refundable.
