Kiwanis Music Festival will survive

Pembroke, Daily Observer
http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1443760

While many service clubs have fallen on hard economic times, the Kiwanis Club of Pembroke is vowing to keep the popular Kiwanis Music Festival going no matter what it takes.

The festival wraps up its 61st edition today after three weeks of musical competition between 578 entries hailing from schools and musical organizations across Renfrew and Pontiac counties.

As another successful festival draws to a close, Kiwanis president Rick Duncan stated Thursday this venue that fosters musical talents of the youth in the community will survive.

“This music festival will continue,” Duncan said as he watched finalists in the instrumental category take to the stage at Festival Hall. “It is too high a priority for our club to let it go.”

Since 1949, the Pembroke Kiwanis Music Festival has been an impressive program. This year, some 261 students with 46 teachers and conductors have participated. About 65 awards and trophies worth $7,000 have been won by competitors.

The festival is run by 93 volunteers who put in countless hours to ensure every performance goes off without a hitch.

“This is the flagship project of the Kiwanis,” said music festival committee co-chair Raghavan Vijay. “It is really a mammoth task.”

Although many service clubs across the province have disbanded, with several music festivals also discontinuing, the club said it did not want to see the Kiwanis Festival suffer the same fate.

However, Duncan said the festival is not in danger thanks to an exhaustive list of patrons and community support.

“It is such a collaborative effort,” he said. “You have a focus by everyone to make the Kiwanis Festival a tremendous success for the children in the community.”

Over the past 60 years, the festival has grown from a two-day to a three-week event.

The festival has also sparked internationally renowned careers of local talent like April Verch and Josh Hopkins. Students have also used their credentials from the festival to successfully apply to post-secondary institutions.

Vijay set aside special praise for the judges Vicki Iles of Ottawa, Kingston's Gisele Szczesniak and Les Dobbin of Toronto, for their input. Each adjudicator not only briefs the student on their performance but hands them a written assessment.

“They appreciate the students, they encourage the students and they give them mini-lessons that are extremely valuable,” said Vijay.

The festival welcomed a wide variety of musical entries and disciplines from bands, choirs and choral speaking to piano playing, singing and solo instrumentals.

Many students, such as Hillary Landrigan, who attends Deep River's Mackenzie High School, have become old pros at festival competition.

“I don't really get nervous when I come here now,” said Landrigan, who played clarinet and recorder in her sixth festival.

For 10-year-old Bradley Audet, his second trip to the festival has also given him confidence. The Grade 5 student from Deep River's T. W. Morison Public School was all smiles after playing “Siciliana and Allegro” on the recorder. He remarked the judges do not intimidate him as much now.

“They tell me things I didn't know about my piece,” he said.

Bradley's mother, Anna Audet, said it is a positive aspect of the festival that students are exposed to formality at such a young age.

“There's not too many places that you see decorum and structure and it's good that they get that,” said  Audet.

Like parents, music teachers play a vital role in their students' successes. They not only tutor their students before, during and after a performance, but they will shuttle them to and from the venue.

Deep River music teacher Susan Morris has been making several trips up and down Highway 17 over the last three weeks.

“It's a really valuable performance opportunity,” said Morris who, as a youth, played in her own Kiwanis Festival in Ottawa. “The students hear from other people who are playing at their level and they get immersed in this musical environment for a few days.”

Organizers wished to thank Ecole Equinox School and Principal Colette Cote for the support and cooperation and the Valley Arts Council for hosting the festival.

Several award winners will be appearing at the Festival of Stars concert hosted by the Kiwanis Club at Festival Hall on Thursday, March 5 beginning at 7:30 p.m.