Music Fest sings their way through final week

The Humboldt and District Music Festival continued this week with the vocal, choral and speech arts competition held at Jerome Assembly Hall in Muenster on Apr. 25-27.

The competition featured 44 participants as well as two school choirs that competed in 94 different categories, with most competitors performing in multiple categories.

Adjudicator, Dominic Gregorio, says the competition went really well and he was very impressed with the overall quality of the competitors.

“I’ve adjudicated in so many place and this has got to be one of the most talented areas that I’ve ever been in these kids. These singers are extremely talented, they’ve got amazing teachers and they’re learning the fundamentals really early on. I’d say their level of performance is extremely high, extremely expressive.”

The competitors sang everything from ballads, to up tempo songs, to contemporary music, to musical animated movie songs to musical theatre songs among many more.

Gregorio says the biggest thing he noticed from the students that they need to work on is overcoming their fear.

“Say to fear that this is false evidence appearing to be real, everybody’s here to support me, I can come into my full expressivity as a human being and express myself to the audience and to my loved ones and really enjoy the act of making music.”

As for fundamental corrections that need to be fixed Gregorio says that they are the same as they are for any singer.

“Which is more spaciousness, more sense of forward resonance and just general body relaxation.”

He says spaciousness comes down to releasing the jaw, lifting the soft palate on the back of the singers’ mouth and a flattening of the tongue in the mouth.

Gregorio credits the teachers for providing the students with quality instruction and teaching them the proper fundamental techniques at an early age.

“The students are more technically able to sing more challenging things more beautifully because of the technique that they’ve learned from their excellent teachers here.”

Teaching students the proper techniques at an early age is important says Greorio who as a university professor says he sees a number of students come into his classroom that have a number of bad habits.

“It’s really excellent for them because they’re practicing all of the best habits and it becomes ingrained… and it’s hard to break when you’re older when you’ve practiced the bad habit for such a long time.”

Gregorio says he had a great time at the festival and would absolutely come back in the future.

“I’m just really impressed with this festival and the singing, the students and the teachers and just really happy to be here.”

This wraps up on after a busy three weeks.

The festival got underway in the St. Augustine Band Room and Gym with the Band, Strings and Guitar competition on Apr. 11-12 before moving to Jerome Assembly Room at St. Peter’s Abbey in Muenster for the Piano competition Apr. 18-21 and the Vocal, Choral, and Speech Arts competition before wrapping up at Marysburg Assumption Church on May 1.

All told there was over 200 competitors taught by 18 teachers in over 400 categories.

Festival President Patti Durand says the amount of input and preparation that went into the festival never ceases to amaze her.

“With the over 200 students that performed over those three weeks it tally’s up to well over 6000 hours of instruction and so the commitment on their part, on the part of their families, on the part of their instructors and teachers it’s very inspiring and it just adds an incredible level of depth to the culture of our area.”

With all of the work that goes into making the festival a success Durand admits it is exciting to be done but added that the many people that are apart of the committee make her life a lot easier and called the ending “bittersweet.”  

“We’re proud of our performers but we’re kind of glad to not have to hear the same songs on repeat,” she joked.

The numbers for the festival have remained fairly stagnant over the past couple of years, says Durand who noted they did notice a slight decline in numbers a few years ago.

Over the years Durand has seen a direct correlation between the numbers the festival sees and the number of teachers. She says they would love to see the numbers for the festival start to climb back up to where they were approximately ten years ago but admits with so many other opportunities happening within the community it makes the kids really busy.

“So those families that choose to invest in music and that development we really want to support them and continue to provide a venue for them to perform.”

This year the festival is sending five of their senior performers to the provincial music festival, which is an average year, says Durand.

Durand says that sending that number says a lot.

“These students are continuing to remain committed into their senior years which speaks very highly of them and their commitment as well as their talent.”

Durand credits the large number of people that helped put the festival together and says it would not be possible without all of their support.

“Truly this would not be possible without considerable volunteers from within our community and the commitment and passion for music and continuing to foster it cannot be understated. We just really value it and look forward to bringing together another festival in 2017.”