The 82nd Battlefords Kiwanis Music Festival season comes to a close with the celebratory gala and awards ceremony at 7:00 p.m. Friday in Logie Hall at Third Avenue United Church.
Admission is $5 per person or $15 per family with free admission for award recipients and award presenters. The program will feature youth representatives from all the festival disciplines - speech arts, band, vocal, piano and strings. Awards and scholarships will be presented at the conclusion of the concert. Sobeys cupcakes and refreshments are available at the close of the awards ceremony. Come out to enjoy some adjudicator-chosen performance highlights from the festival and to help honour the numerous young people from our community receiving special recognition courtesy of local individuals and businesses.
Eligibility for awards and scholarships require that the festival participant be 19 years of age or younger and have lived in the Battlefords district for at least six months prior to the festival. They also must have performed two or more solo selections or at least one solo and one duet or trio in the same discipline. However, all students are welcome for adjudication and recommendation to the provincial and national level competitions.
Recipients must be present to receive awards, though exceptions may be made with the prior approval of the Scholarship and Awards Committee. Trophies, plaques, and shields are not to leave the ceremony. Keeper trophies may, of course, be taken home. It is good manners to thank the sponsor of awards. I know the festival committee enjoys passing around the lovely hand-written notes and cards we receive from participants who received festival sponsored awards.
Please note participants recommended for Provincial competition must have their pieces memorized to compete at the provincial level.
We once again say "bravo" to the schools who prepared classes of students for choral speech performances. It has been a special targeted mission to increase participation in this area. As a local teacher, I especially support the integration of this discipline into classroom programming. I support the value of expanding academic understanding through this form and am a proponent of giving children the opportunity to speak in public while amidst the safety of numbers in an ensemble setting. Bready contributed two half days of performances.
As usual, the evenings of musical theatre were a complete delight. The calibre of vocal and piano skills displayed speaks volumes in terms of the quality of our local music teachers. We are fortunate to have so many gifted, knowledgeable, caring, and dedicated local teachers. Our community is also privileged to provide instruction in strings allowing for an entire day to showcase their efforts. Senior band students, some of whom are soon heading off to prepare for careers in music, consistently set the bar high for those younger students following in their footsteps.
Looking ahead to next season, do keep in mind that we are always looking for parents and community-minded music lovers to step forward and say, "How can I help?" If you might be willing to assist, even in a small way, with the general planning and/or execution of the 2014 Battlefords Kiwanis Music Festival, simply leave your name and number with any committee member and we will contact you in the fall when preparations get underway.
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception." - Albert Einstein (when asked about his theory of relativity)
