With this year鈥檚 Battlefords Kiwanis Music Festival entry registration date of Saturday, Feb. 6, teachers and students have around a month remaining to make selections that best showcase local talent.
The 2016 festival is scheduled to run from April 16 鈥� 23. Fees for solos, duets, trios and small ensembles remain at $13 per entry. We continue to encourage multiple entries by offering a family rate of a 50 per cent discount after 10 solo entries by individual participants. Band, choir, and large ensemble entries are $25 per entry. Battlefords festival entry fees are still lower than those suggested in the provincial syllabus. It is our goal to encourage participation by keeping fees affordable.
Late entries will again be accepted with a $25 registration fee. Deadline is Feb. 16. Our local area entry secretary, Melissa Hutchison, can also be contacted by email at [email protected]. Watch for upcoming details regarding our move this year to online registration.
The committee is again looking for entries in the festival program cover drawing contest. Children and youth from the Battlefords area are invited to submit original ideas for considered use as the 2016 festival program cover. Selected pieces of artwork not chosen for the cover may also be featured within the pages of the program or in the festival venues. Although all musical themed ideas are welcome, typically those reflecting the festival鈥檚 disciplines are chosen for use in the program (solo or group singing or speaking, piano, acoustic strings, band or orchestra).
Many classrooms in the Battlefords area place band or choral singing ensembles entries into the music festival. Some local classrooms over the last few years have discovered the joy of preparing and entering choral speech entries. Choral speaking does not require any expensive instruments or years of specialized training. Anyone can do it. All that is needed are poems and stories teachers and students feel are worthy of exploring along with some imagination. It lends itself easily to language arts and arts education curriculum learning objectives. Speech arts are a fun way to creatively explore written text using dynamics (loud versus soft), tempo (fast versus slow), rhythm and dramatic expression. Choral speaking activities are highly engaging for students and offer safety in numbers for those students less comfortable with public speaking. It is not difficult to find material that is both educationally valid and of interest to students. Schools have the option to travel to a festival venue for adjudication or, with a minimum of five group entries, request that the adjudicator come to their school to view performances.
Participants are welcome for adjudication by experts in the field of each musical discipline and recommendation to the provincial and national competitions. To be eligible for scholarships and awards, participants must be 19 years or under and have lived in the Battlefords and district for a minimum of six months prior to the festival or be furthering their education elsewhere, but still supported by parents living in the Battlefords district. The discipline areas include voice, piano, strings and band or instrumental. Further information about regional and provincial music festivals can be found on the Saskatchewan Music Festival鈥檚 website http://smfa.ca.
The festival is always in need of volunteers so don鈥檛 be shy to ask, 鈥淗ow can I help?鈥� Simply contact a committee member if you have any interest as we have numerous options from small-sized to large-sized. If your time is not available but you or your business would like to support the festival monetarily, consider sponsoring an award to be presented at the final gala event at the Dekker Centre, or sponsoring a session for a music discipline of your choice, or being recognized as a patron or friend of the festival.
鈥淢usic is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.鈥�鈥� Sarah Dessen, Just Listen
