Aloha! Keith and Nani Lowery were married in Kaneohe, HI on June 28, 1986. Other than their love for God and each other, their passion throughout their marriage is perpetuating the Aloha spirit. Nani was born and raised in Hawaii, on the Windward side of Oahu. She has played the ukulele for as long as she can remember. Keith plays the UBass, and together they have performed at various venues. After attending the Funky Frets Ukulele Festival in early October of 2018 (where Nani was one of the instructors), Keith got the idea of creating a similar ukulele festival for the DMV. By the 1st of November 2018, the Gaithersburg UkeFest website was active, and 5 months later the 2019 Inaugural Gaithersburg UkeFest was held.
We invite you to explore the website, to see what Gaithersburg UkeFest has created for the ukulele community. The 2019 and 2022 in-person festivals were very successful, and the 2019 and 2022 Kanikapila Kollectives were fun and worthwhile community events, including performances from Ukulele Clubs and Jams from Northern Virginia, Maryland, New York, and the panhandle of West Virginia!
During the shutdown periods of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gaithersburg UkeFest created and produced 4 separate virtual ukulele festivals of 3 or 4-month durations of time. These online festivals were held in the Spring of 2020, Fall of 2020, Winter of 2021, and Spring of 2021. All of the Performer Showcases are on this website under the Showcase Video's tab. Whether you were one of the artists who performed on them, or attended by signing into Zoom, I hope you benefitted by keeping connected with the ukulele community!
Nani and Keith moved to Las Vegas, NV in May 2022, but still intend to continue organizing and running Gaithersburg UkeFest, and other events like the DMV Kanikaplia Kollective.
Through an anonymous gift from one of our patrons, Gaithersburg UkeFest was enabled to award a full scholarship to Gabrielle. The recipient!
Bio:
Gabrielle Zwi (they/them) is a musician, educator, and community organizer based in Rockville, MD. They have been playing ukulele self-taught since 2014 and began giving lessons to kids in their neighborhood in 2016. Last summer, Gabrielle was the ukulele and songwriting teacher at Hamilton Camp, a collaborative program of Carpe Diem Arts and The Civic Circle. In Fall 2022, Gabrielle was the ukulele teacher for Youth ArtBeat, an after-school program at Gaithersburg Elementary School sponsored by Carpe Diem Arts. Now in 2023, Gabrielle is teaching Songwriting for Social-Emotional Learning in the same after-school program. Gabrielle is a Brazilian-American dual-citizen and a member of the LGBTQ+ community and has Autism Spectrum Disorder along with other disabilities that have played an integral role in their creative work. You can find Gabrielle with their tenor ukulele in concerts, protests, and other events throughout the DMV, performing solo or with their band “Gabrielle Zwi and Friends”. Gabrielle is very excited to improve their skills on baritone ukulele, bass ukulele, and cavaquinho too!
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