Council on Aging ukulele group strikes a chord

Every Tuesday, musicians gather at the Council on Aging and fill the community room with songs from their youth.

The group, which has met for about 15 years, is led by Daniel Métraux. He started as a member, but has since taken over as the leader and continues to run the group even after moving out of Weston.

“I’m very attached to this group since we’ve been playing for so long,” he said. “People make friends here…People like to be comfortable and play the music of their youth.”

When Métraux joined, there were 17 members. Now there are 42. Some sessions fill the community room, and some are smaller, depending on who can make it from week to week.

There was a small session in June when 11 members gathered around music stands with ukuleles and banjos. They wore summer hats to celebrate the season.

Métraux stopped the group a couple of notes into their first song, saying that somebody was out of tune. Once the offending musician adjusted her instrument, the group kicked off.

The group’s repertoire is eclectic. There is folk music, with Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” and jazz, with “Summertime” by George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward.

The level of expertise is equally varied. Some members, such as Métraux and Jean Thurston, have picked up the ukulele again for the first time since they were young. Others are new to the instrument or worked as professional musicians.

“We’ve a great variety of people, but we have one thing that brings us together – which is that we love to play ukulele,” Thurston said.

Nancy Moorhouse played flute as a child, but picked up the ukulele for the first time about five years ago with a similar group in Wayland.

“It felt like ukulele suddenly got very popular, and my friend and I decided to try it,” she said. “It’s an easy instrument to learn.”

Moorhouse is now a part of four ukulele groups. In her digital group, she reconnected with an old friend from her childhood music classes.

For Iva Brown, who brought snacks to the session in June, building community is more important than making music.

“It soothes my spirit,” she said. “We look out for one another; that’s the nicest thing about it.”