Harrison Street Ukulele Players get profiled at their annual Christmas Party.
The crew over at WGN News was out in Oak Park recently capturing the holiday spirit over at the Eastgate Cafe. Every Thursday night, the cafe hosts the Harrison Street Ukulele Players. WGN stopped by to film the group's annual holiday party, featuring a number of Christmas standards—all played on the ukulele of course! You can watch the video on our site via YouTube above. Profiled in the story is ukulele player and owner of Oak Park's Wonderwall Music Shoppe and Emporium, GiGi Monaco. Players at the Christmas concert described played the ukulele to WGN as "joyful," "intimate", and my favorite, "cheap thearapy!" Check out a video of the club performing The Beatles Eight Days a Week above in videos too and check out the Harrison Street …
An evening at Eastgate Cafe shows there's a lot more to this instrument than meets the ear.
- THE NEIGHBORHOOD FILES
- Casey Cora
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Friday, November 5, 2010
Enthusiasts call the ukulele the "people's instrument" — four strings, a few chords and zero pretense. "We want to play," said GiGi Monaco, co-owner of the Wonderwall Emporium and founder of The Harrison Street Ukulele Players in Oak Park. "Have fun." That may sound like Monaco is oversimplifying things. She's not. "That's what we want to do," she said. Founded in 2008, The Harrison Street Ukulele Players meet once a week inside the cozy confines of the Eastgate Cafe, 102 Harrison St. Each session, organized online via meetup.com, typically draws about a dozen or so people. "It's just been something joyful and so fun," said administrative assistant Annie Wegener, 46, of Mt. Prospect, who battles construction traffic and travels about …
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WONDERWALL Music Shoppe & Emporium
325 Harrison St, Oak Park, IL
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Matthew Hendrickson
1:13 pm on Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Thanks for the comment, Wonderwall! And congrats on the profile! more ›