Shadows and Light

All who hesitated about coming out to the Evergreen Theatre to hear a concert of Ukulele and Cello music and decided to take that leap of faith and come, were surely not disappointed. The theatre attracts performers who are outstanding in their particular genres and James Hill was no exception, judging by the good sized crowd, some of whom were Ukulele aficionados who had come a good distance to see this virtuoso pair perform. See the photo gallery of the performance here or read on for my impressions of the performance.

If any in the audience were expecting an evening of Hawaiian music (or George Formby cleaning windows) then they were to be surprised though certainly not disappointed by the performance. It is not unusual for performers to include in their repertoire music relating to different countries around the world and James Hill did exactly that. Starting with a tune from Truro NS based composer Chalmers Doane “Uke Talk” he then whisked us to South America for a one note Ukulele and Cello Samba. During this he demonstrated the versatility of the Ukulele in an amazing one man band style playing the Uke even as drums.His composition “Song for Cheri”, which started off in an introspective quiet mood, developing into a happy-go-lucky tune and as for all his tunes that night he had audience provided percussion in the appreciative foot-tapping.

Moving next to the Southern USA, he sang and played an unusual and rather interesting rendition of Oh! Susanna, with the Uke on his knee and then after a playful Little Piggie song he moved us all to Greece where we could practically taste the Ouzo while listening to the Greek Folk dance. From Greece it was a hop, skip and jump to Japan and a haunting rendition of a Japanese folk song about the Cherry Blossoms – Sakura Sakura. Everyone expects a Hawaiian Ukulele tune and James did not disappoint but put his own twist on the tune and the title “Crazy G” which became “Crazy A” (eh?). James was accompanied by Anne Davison on Cello and the music playing on the gallery here features them both in a composition of James’, the middle part of “One Small Suite for Ukulele” off his CD A Flying Leap, which is a beautiful suite with exquisitely delicate moments. The evening was wonderfully unique and entertaining and one that we will remember. Thank you James and Anne. We hope to see you again.

You can see the photo gallery of the evening here.

Ellie.