Victoria Vox, headliner at the weekend’s New Jersey Uke Fest in Whippany, shared tips during a Saturday workshop about performing under stress.
In concert that evening, the singer-songwriter put her advice to the test.
“Last night … I got news that a great friend of mine committed suicide,” Vox revealed to the audience.
Somehow she got through the next song, Out On the Rails, which she had written for a documentary by her late friend, Jim Rivett.
Video: Victoria Vox shares sad news
Rivett, 60, ran a marketing and graphic design company in Vox’s native Green Bay, WI. They collaborated on several projects over the last decade, including an animated video for The Bird Song by Vox.
Around Green Bay, Rivett was known as a friend to the arts–he won a national award in 2009–and as a humanitarian. He spent a year helping the poor in Costa Rica, and was a prodigious fundraiser for the Red Cross.
“I’m saddened by his loss and his loss in the community. But I think you take away the good, and hope that maybe it saves someone else, through the story. That people aren’t alone. All we can do is talk about it,” Vox said after her performance, which followed three workshops she gave after little sleep.
Her aunt had texted the news on Friday, while Vox was attending the festival’s opening night concert by Abe Lagrimas Jr., inside the Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey.
Ukulele festivals are buoyant affairs. Vox said she tapped into that feeling to hold herself together.
“I think just hanging out with the people who were happy to be here, and here for the experience, and just to play music, it kind of distracted me in a way from what was going on in my brain,” she said.
She also keyed on happy memories associated with Rivett. Like singing The Bird Song with 2,500 schoolkids in New Zealand. An accomplished practitioner of mouth-trumpeting, Vox led the Whippany audience in a spirited group solo for that number.
One of her workshop tips was: Don’t get flustered. Nearly two decades as a performer have prepared her for rocky nights…like the time a relationship of nearly five years abruptly ended right before a gig.
“I guess it comes down to being a professional, and it’s just like, the show must go on. You can be tired. You can be angry. You can be sad. And you’ve got to get up there,” said Vox, 39.
She showed that professionalism again on Sunday, before her planes-trains-and-automobiles journey back home to southern California.
For two hours, she cheerfully jammed with a battalion of eager amateurs on the toasty Morristown Green. Then she brought her A game to an old firehouse in Mendham, taping a segment for the Folk Project’s cable program, Horses Sing None of It.
“They are a pretty crazy group!” Vox said of the festival ukesters. “The proof being that when we finished recording the TV show and passed by the Green hours later, some of them were still there!”
‘LIKE A LITTLE PUPPY DOG’
About 150 people registered for the festival, said Chairperson Pam Robinson, who oversaw 15 volunteers for this fifth anniversary of the Folk Project event.
Retired judge Judy Reichler traveled 90 minutes from New Paltz, NY. She fell in love with the ukulele at another festival last year.
“It’s like a little puppy dog. I want to carry it around everywhere,” said Reichler, intently listening to ace instrumentalist Abe Lagrimas Jr. sharing tips on jazz improv.
“You need to not be afraid to make mistakes,” advised Lagrimas, who dazzled festival-goers at his Friday concert.
Uking it up at the 2018 NJ Uke Fest: Slideshow photos by Bill Lescohier and Kevin Coughlin. Click or hover on images for captions:
Rob Del Gaudio, who uses ukuleles to teach music to 5th graders in Westchester County, NY, sat in on performer Gracie Terzian’s workshop on chord variations. Drums are his first instrument, but he’s been plinking a ukulele for five years and is starting a uke club in Tarrytown.
“It’s very of-the-earth to me, very natural. A deep joy comes through it,” Del Gaudio said.
Christine Kim also teaches music in elementary school, in Marlton, and she too aims to launch a uke club. She’s been strumming for a couple of years, inspiring her daughter, Jinny Lee, 12, to learn Disney tunes on the instrument. So who’s the best player in the family?
They both gave a laughing no comment.
The performers: Slideshow photos by Bill Lescohier and Kevin Coughlin; hover/ click images for captions:
‘IT MADE THEM EMOTIONAL’
Laura Wootton, winner of the festival’s open mic competition, credits the ukulele with giving her back her voice. As a teenager she lost confidence in singing. Moving on, she became a yoga instructor and life coach.
When her then-boyfriend brought home a uke three years ago, Wootton could not put it down.
“As I continued learning to play, I wanted to sing along. So I started singing again… but only when I was by myself!” said the Riverdale resident, 34.
One of her yoga students, singer Brynn Stanley (the voice of MorristownGreen.com) gave her encouragement and an introduction to her guitarist, Arturo. Some gigs followed.
(You can hear Wootton perform in Clinton on Sept. 14, 2018, at 7 pm on Main Street, outside the Heart Strings store.)
Wootton played her uke to comfort her terminally ill father last year. At Saturday’s open mic competition she sang one of his favorites, Over the Rainbow. She sang another, Leaving on a Jet Plane, that evening in her contest-winning slot opening for The Aloha Boys and Vox, who both gave her shout-outs in their sets.
Listeners’ feedback moved Wootton as much as she moved them.
“Mostly, people said it made them emotional,” she said. “Many people came to tell me they had also lost someone recently, or that they connected with my story. And I really loved that. In my teaching, writing and singing, I always hope to connect with people in that way.”
Gracie Terzian, who bought a harp-uke online and has been touring for about three years, said she alsois touched by the warmth of this community.
“You go to a guitarist’s video, and half the comments are, ‘The tone is disgusting!’ All these guitarists are talking smack about the performer,” said Terzian, 27.
“You see a uke player, and maybe they’re not that great, but everyone’s like, ‘Great! Keep up the good work.’ There is a friendly camaraderie.”
MORE COVERAGE OF THE 2018 NJ UKE FEST
READ OUR PREVIEW WITH VICTORIA VOX
Jamming on the Green at 2018 NJ Uke Fest, video by Bill Lescohier
