For musicians and artists in the southeast corner of the province, the Carnduff and District Music and Arts Festival has become an important showcase of their abilities every year.
This year’s festival will run from March 12 to 17. Strings and guitar performances will be March 12, piano performances will be March 13 to 16, band and instrumental classes are on March 15, and the vocal, speech arts and musical theatre competition will be March 17.
The performances will be at the Carnduff branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, except for band and instrumental, which will happen at the Oxbow Prairie Horizons School.
Pamela Dmytriw, who is the president of this year’s festival, said they received 328 entries for the music component of the festival, and nearly 300 submissions for the art contest.
Entries for the strings and the piano disciplines are up this year, so they had to add an extra day to the festival.
“It gives us a little bit of breathing room,” said Dmytriw. “Our volunteers will hopefully last the whole week, and we will survive it. But it will be a great, great event.”
A festival highlights and awards program will happen on March 20 at 7 p.m. at the Carnduff Legion.
“All of our sessions are open to the public to come and listen at any time,” said Dmytriw. “We find most of the public comes for the highlights concert.”
The festival draws musicians from as far west as Alameda and as far north as Storthoaks.
“The talent is fantastic,” said Dmytriw. “We have everything from non-competitive, adjudication only classes, which are our four to six-year-olds, right through to Grade 12 students. We occasionally have adults, but this year we do not.”
The young people work hard to practice their selections, and they bring their best to the festival, said Dmytriw.
Performers also appreciate how the adjudicators take time to work with the kids.
“There’s always room for growth, and hopefully they will be able to take something from festival, and learn from it,” said Dmytriw.
This year’s adjudicators are Marla Winters of Brandon, Manitoba, in violin; Aaron Wilson, also of Brandon, in band and instrumental; Janet Gieck of Pambrun, Saskatchewan, in piano; and Melissa Morgan of Regina in vocal, speech arts and musical theatre.
The arts festival has already been judged, but the winners won’t be posted until the music festival begins. The art will be on display at the Legion throughout the festival.
“It’s how we decorate,” said Dmytriw with a laugh. “And all of the art is based on our theme this year, which is Magical Moments.”
The art is always fantastic to view, she said. They have different classes, ranging from kindergarten to Grade 12, and Dmytriw looks forward to seeing the creativity on display.
“Basically, they are told our theme, and then they are able to come up with something that exemplifies all of the good qualities of art, and portray that with their theme in our artwork,” said Dmytriw.
The committee has worked hard the last two years to promote the arts component of the festival. In the past, it was a poster contest that was designed to create advertising.
“A couple of volunteers have really tweaked the criteria for it, and revamped it so that it had more focus on art, as opposed to being just an advertising poster,” said Dmytriw.
A Strawberry Tea on March 4 kicked off the festival. Dmytriw said it is a great way to open the festival, because it gives the students a chance to perform on the stage, and listen to how things sound.
“We had a total of 28 performers … at the Strawberry Tea, and they all did very well,” said Dmytriw. “They definitely learned what needed to be tweaked before festival, so that was good for them, and we learned we needed to tweak the piano a little bit.”
The tea has kicked off the festival for the past eight years. In the past, they either had a Strawberry Tea or a Telemiracle fundraiser before the festival began.
Dmytriw also praised the volunteers who allow the festival to happen each year. They have a great board with eight really dedicated who work to make sure the event is a success.
“Then we call upon the parents and the families of the participants to help us out during the festival, so we get lots of volunteer support from the men and women in the community … as far as helping us out,” said Dmytriw.
Regardless of whether it’s through sponsorships, providing help in the kitchen or assisting the adjudicators, the community rallies around the festival, she said, even though the economy hasn’t been in the greatest shape the last couple of years.
