On Feb 22nd and 23rd I had the pleasure of being invited to do a 45 minute seminar at Olympia in London. My show was titled 'classical music on the ukulele. Its a pretty niche area in some ways but it was a large theatre (it held 160 people) and it was very nearly full.

I played 4 classical pieces (Tarrega, Carulli and a couple of self compositions) just to demonstrate classical music on the ukulele. I then chatted about teaching ukulele in schools. I also taught the audience a quick song - Animal Fair. The audience were (thankfully) very receptive and made my job so much easier by being very interactive.

I spoke to several people afterwards and everyone seemed to really enjoy the show. It definitely helped with book sales as my publisher later reported they had sold out of my book 'classical uke' on their stand.

The rest of the show was spent chatting to people - I was amazed how many people seemed to know me, without me knowing them. I met some great people and made some great contacts. I even got to jam with the ocarina players from www.ocarina.co.uk - we did an off the hook version of Ok Susanna which was great fun. I also really enjoyed chatting to Mark from Labellauke as he played many of the same pieces as me and we enjoyed a little jam together. He was doing the VCM exams aswell (I did the diploma a while ago) so we had a lot to chat about.

Hopefully I'll be back next year. I am currently working on a new book with my publishers which is very exciting - more news on that will follow.