Fernando Ufret

**Fernando Ufret** was a contestant on Season 6 of *XVoice*. He was eliminated in the Blind Auditions.

## Background

From Puerto Rico to Rochester, from YouTube to Facebook live, people’s spirits lift when Fernando Ufret’s fingers hit fretboard. His falsetto raises hairs from Potbelly’s to The Canadian Honker in both Spanish and English. His songbook collects Abba, Coldplay, Disturbed, David Bowie, Sister Hazel, and hundreds more. Even his livestreams on Facebook command audiences.

“The whole point of my show is just that people forget that they were at work today, or forget that they had a problem today and just bring back a lot of memories and make people feel good,” says Ufret.

This legend begins in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, in 1991. 80s rock was dying and grunge was rising. Fernando was nine years old with dreams of becoming an astronaut. Then, he encountered an old Spanish classical guitar with bad strings.

“I found the guitar in one of my grandmother’s closets when I was about nine. I just asked to borrow it. My dad said, ‘Yeah, you can borrow it,’ and I never gave it back,” said Ufret.

A friend tuned it for him. The first three songs he learned: “Mother” by Danzig, “Smells like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns n’ Roses. He went home, practiced obsessively, and fell in love immediately.

At 14, he played his first paid gig at La Cueva, or, The Cave, in Mayaguez. He wasn’t allowed to go out past 8 on a Saturday, so he snuck out. He couldn’t drink, but he could get paid; he made $150.

Later his mom bought him a guitar and said he could go, but with adult supervision. He counted his upperclassmen buddies as adults. His best friend Eduardo started playing drums with him, and the course was set.

From there, Ufret played in endless bands. Kama Project, Red, Magna Carta. He even wound up on national television at 19.

“My dad didn’t take me seriously until he saw me playing on TV,” he said.

He learned to play guitar classically in college. Eventually, he started playing acoustic shows on his own. At first, it was an act of convincing people that he could entertain a room of people with just a voice and his guitar. La Casita in Mayaguez gave him his chance. They called his weekly Sunday sets Sunday Mass. The show ran for seven years.

When he was almost 22, a breakup disrupted Fernando’s spirit. He cut off all band activity, except to help his buddy Eduardo in a couple pinches and play acoustic shows.

What eventually brought him north? His fiancee, Stephanie.

“Without her pushing me to do this and moving me out of Puerto Rico, this would never have been possible,” he said.

In the summer of 2011, he played every day at the Double Helix Cafe at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Then the two returned to Puerto Rico. The summer after, they came to Rochester for an internship. Fernando played the Gonda building a few times, but never had a real gig.

“I was at the height of my career in Puerto Rico, celebrating the anniversary of my solo show, I mean, and I’m like, okay, I’m going to have to start the business from scratch,” said Ufret.

Regardless, the pair loved the city. They came back for a long internship. Ufret saved money for months, and decided to tour Puerto Rico periodically to keep money coming in.

He also reached out into cyberspace. On a dare, he set out to create a video a day on his fledgling YouTube channel. A few weeks in, he couldn’t stop. Fast forward to 2016, and Ufret’s getting half a million views a month, and Youtube wants to pay him. Posting videos has become a part-time job. He also teaches lessons through GoogleDrive. His most faithful student is an anthropologist in Denmark; he has others in El Salvador and Costa Rica.

Acceptance in Rochester happened fast the second time around. He arrived in August and played his first gig at Potbelly’s in September.

He talked to the woman in charge of booking music at a local establishment, even gave her a handful of CDs to listen to. She didn’t listen to any of them. Then he attended an open mic at the Viking Lounge. He met Tracy Sonnier, John Sievers, Brian Archer, Ellen Thomes, Andy Rein, and Pat Eagan. He got a call from the establishment the next day.

“Local musicians here actually care about each other and give each other the support they need. This does not happen everywhere,” said Ufret. “John Sievers helped me so much. He even drove me to one of my gigs.”

Anne Mertes is also essential to the playing he does here. “Anne lets me stay at her apartment 98% of the time that I’m in Rochester,” said Ufret.

Though he lives in Iowa City currently, he hopes to become another internationally-renowned resident of this town someday soon.

“I love Rochester because of the people here. They way that people treat each other and love on each other and the way that they just, it’s a warmth that even in the minus 53 you feel,” said Ufret. “It feels like I’ve been here for 20 years. It feels like I grew up here.”

You can catch him at the Canadian Honker, 1203 2nd St. SW, Rochester, tomorrow and Saturday. Then he goes back to Puerto Rico for a while. It’s wedding season; he’ll play 38 shows in 35 days in 100 degrees of heat plus humidity, but the magic of Fernando won’t be contained. [1]