Tahiti breaks record for largest band of Ukulele players
Tahiti has made into the Guinness Book of Records with the largest band of Ukulele players in the world.
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The Festival was launched by the Minister of Culture, Heremoana Maamaatuaiahutapu. Mr Maamaatuaiahutapu says he believed Tahiti was capable of beating the previous record of 2370 participants set in Britain last July. Photo: supplied
"I said, 'ok, let's try - in Tahiti probably we could have almost 3000 people' and we got more than 4000 people inside the place. It was a really big big surprise for everybody to see all those people coming from very far islands to participate in this world record. So it was a very huge, huge moment."
Vaiana Giraug who was in charge of organising the event says more than 6,000 people turned up to play but the venue could not fit everyone in.
"We had people from the island, from Mo'orea which is the island just in front of Tahiti, but also from other archipelagos. They came from everywhere. So I think that for the population it was really important to be there and to participate and people who were outside were very disappointed that they cannot come in."
Ms Giraug says preparations leading up to the event brought a positive change in the community
"Before the young people were with their ipod or modern music instrument or I don't know what. And in two weeks we can really see there were a lot of people with their Ukulele in town. Young people, teenagers - everybody was with their ukulele and playing and practising for the record."
The 'Ukulele players were required to play together in harmony for at least five minutes in order to meet Guinness record standards. They played 'Bora Bora e' a song which has contributed to the international fame of Bora Bora island and was written by the late musician, Eddy Lund.
Mr Maamaatuaiahutapu says French Polynesia's president Edourd Fritch alongside 50 other politicians also joined in to play.
"All the ministers from the government who knows how to play the Ukulele, they came also. And some mayors also came. Even people from other political groups. Everybody was very happy to see the community unite again without any political issues. Everybody came just for fun."
On April 18th there will be an attempt to beat the Tahitian Record in Los Angeles, Mr Maamaatuaiahutapu says.
Of course everybody's waiting for what could happen with the Americans. They ask me also, if the Americans break the Tahitian record, they want to beat them again but in August. And we will come with 10,000 people of course.
Tahiti Ukulele Festival sets world record with 4,750 players Photo: supplied
