McCONNELL, ZONA

Homebase: Seattle / Camano Island, WA
Stats: June 17, 1884 – November 24, 1977
Misc Notes: Multi-instrumentalist musician Zona Lillian McConnell was a music teacher in King and Snohomish counties for decades, nurturing the talents of generations of students. She and her husband Dennis moved to the West Coast from the Midwest in 1912 and settled first in Portland and then Seattle, where she began offering music lessons, performing concerts, and playing violin on radio programs. Around 1920 she and four other female players were recruited as a quintet to back an ambitious stage production called The Sweetest Girl. In 1926 she formed an all-female sextet, the Banjoettes, and began touring regionally. By 1930 the band was in Hollywood, had secured a manager, and had morphed into Las Senoritas, a nine-piece show band that worked steadily, including in Prohibition-era speakeasies and various halls in Alaska. After adopting two children, the McConnells moved to Madrona Beach on Camano Island, where Zona opened the Madrona Music School and recruited and led numerous youth bands out of nearby Stanwood. Until retiring in the early 1970s, she continued performing concerts in towns throughout the Puget Sound region. [...Read More Here...]