This year’s edition of the Estevan and District Music Festival was unlike any that had been seen before, but it still offered lots of talent.
The festival was held from April 11-17. It featured piano from April 11-14, followed by vocal/speech arts and musical theatre on April 16 and the instrumental division on April 17.
“This year’s festival was really different in so many ways from the other 56 years that we’ve had a festival, but the workload for organizing it was, I’d say, about three times normal, even though we had half as many entries,” said festival board president Esther Bangsund. “There were so many things that were so different.”
The festival was held virtually, with students and teachers responsible for recording and submitting their performances. The adjudicator viewed the performance and replied with comments.
Despite the time-consuming nature of the event – with the learning curve for videos, the collection of the music virtually, and then organizing forms, certificates and videos – it was worth the effort, Bangsund said.
A total of 251 entries were received this year, which was about half of what they had in 2018 and 2019. The bulk of the entries, 208, came in piano. Twenty-six were in speech arts, vocal and music theatre, and 17 were in instrumental. The latter category saw the biggest decrease, Bangsund said.
The participants did really well with uploading their videos on time. They had an instructional video that was posted through the program they used, Music Festival Suite, which was developed by a band teacher in Alberta last summer.
“We also had to do some step by step instructional emails along with that, and we also had to do some trouble-shooting by phone call, text and email, but out of all of that, we only had two cancellations, so that’s not too bad,” Bangsund said.
The adjudicators had to upload their videos to the same program, which caused some glitches, but they were remedied.
“It was new for everybody,” said Bangsund. “The adjudicators hadn’t been through this. They found that the time they had spent preparing for the virtual festival was much more than any other year.”
In a live festival, participants have to submit originals of their sheet music or poetry. But they couldn’t do anything like that this year. So adjudicators had to find the music if possible, and some pieces couldn’t be sourced, because the participant would play a different version of a song.
The quality of the talent for this year’s festival was excellent and the adjudicators praised the skill level of the entrants.
Some of the performers were more comfortable playing at home, which did impact the quality of the instruments at their disposal, since they might not have access to a grand piano.
Many business and community members supported the festival again this year by sponsoring awards and bursaries.
Two students were recommended to be part of the provincial music festival, which will happen virtually in June. Kaylee Carlson was recommended in four intermediate piano classes and Sadie Aspinall was recommended in elementary piano.
Carlson took home the Murray GM Award for Outstanding Performance in Multiple Disciplines, and the Shirley Andrist Award for outstanding piano performance. She also took the Doreen Inglis Memorial Award as the top student piano accompanist and won awards in the instrumental category.
Garrett Schwab won the Dwight Thompson Memorial Award, donated by Hall Funeral Services, for the runner-up to the Murray GM Award. He also won the Rotary Club of Estevan’s award for top brass performance.
Other notable awards were given to Katherine Ostrander for the outstanding performance in speech arts (donated by Southern Plains Co-op), Cassia Simonyi-Gindele for outstanding performances in voice and musical theatre (donated by Kelly Panteluk Construction Ltd. for voice and Southern Plains Co-op for musical theatre), Madeline Christensen for outstanding woodwind performance (donated by Freeze Frame Photography) and Hudson Hozjan for outstanding performance in excellence classes (donated by Southern Plains Co-op).
For a full list of winners, please visit www.estevanmercury.ca.
Bangsund said it was important to have a festival this year. Last year’s edition was cancelled right before it was to begin due to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and the start of restrictions in Saskatchewan.
“We thought it was important to have the festival continue, just to promote the music in youth, and if they have a performance goal, such as this music competition, then they work towards optimal achievement,” said Bangsund.
With the extra time they have had this year, some people have been practising more, but others were unable to continue with their lessons or performances.
Bangsund hopes they can return to a normal festival next year,
People who have a profile on the Music Festival Suite program can watch the festival videos online. They weren’t able to post a public viewing of all of the performances, but the awards video, featuring 19 performers, can be seen on the festival’s Facebook page or at www.estevanmercury.ca.
Some of the high school participants served as announcers of the awards concert.
