You may have seen talented musician and composer Shaqaila Uelese featured on TV1 (Tagata Pasifika), TV3 (news) or in North & South Magazine and newspapers nationally, or heard her on the radio. She’s been all over the media this week for her fantastic piano playing, and her selfless service as a volunteer and fundraiser.
The Massey Wellington student garnered the widespread media attention after her original interpretation of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody went viral on YouTube with more than 700,000 views – and was shared by Brian May, the original Queen guitarist, on his own page. Shaq is currently playing concerts around the North Island and in September, she will play by invitation at an event in Australia.
If you are in Wellington, you can see Shaq play in person next week, as well as perform as an actor in a show she has co-written, as part of the May 28 Arts on Wednesday Wellington student showcase.
Shaq is part of a student team from the class Creative Processes, who have devised an original multi-media performance piece, called ‘Ear Ear’, to premiere at Arts on Wednesday next week. Appropriately for a musician, the show explores the importance of sound in our world and provokes empathy with those who live with hearing loss, through a dramatic exploration of auditory deprivation.
It is one of three innovative new experimental works to premiere at the free lunchtime show, from 12.30 to 1.30 in 5D14 Theatre Lab.
Shaq is no stranger to using her artwork to draw attention to important causes and perspectives. Over the past year, in honour of her late father, she’s been travelling around New Zealand, along with a support crew including other students from her Massey Wellington classes, to play public koha piano shows to raise money for the Cranford Hospice and Cancer Society NZ – Wellington Division. Her Play for Life piano marathon has raised more than $6,000 so far.
See more at:
http://www.facebook.com/PlayforLifePiano
http://www.facebook.com/Shaqmistro
http://www.facebook.com/WellyArtsWednesdays
See the Bohemian Rhapsody video and Dominion Post story at: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-life/10039996/Pianists-public-performance-pays-off
See the 3News interview at: http://www.3news.co.nz/Kiwi-pianist-finds-a-kind-of-magic/tabid/418/articleID/345282/Default.aspx