Piano Performances Open the 41st Annual Wendy Brook Music Festival

Piano Performances Open the 41st Annual Wendy Brook Music Festival

Rosanne Fortier News Correspondent

The 41st Annual Wendy Brook Music Festival’s opening day featured piano performances on March 9 and continued with performances by aspiring piano players on March 10 at Vegreville United Church Sanctuary.

Esther Madsen was the Adjudicator for the piano pieces where she said she had an awesome time hearing the first set of young participants play the piano. Many of these were beginners at playing the piano and this was their first time perform- ing at the festival. Madsen continued to say they all did a really nice job coming up to the piano and taking a bow after they performed as it is really important to acknowledge the audience. The helpful suggestions she gave the children were it is always important to do counting and a home note means a person has to count to four. Then she showed the young participants how to put themselves in a comfortable position while they played the piano.

Madsen told the next group of slightly older participants that they did really nice piano playing, they were much focused on piano playing, she loved their counting, they had a beautiful sound, and they were very expressive while playing the piano. The helpful tips she offered were that the participants needed to think about what they were going to be doing and playing before they played the piano. “Think about how fast you want to play and where your low and high notes should be.”

Larissa Bombak, Chair of Wendy Brook Music Festival Committee said there were 282 entries this year and the festival theme for 2020 was The Arts of Western Canada.

Matthew Prestash plays piano for the first time at the festival.

(Rosanne Fortier/photo)

“The Wendy Brook Music Festival Association is a nonprofit charity that hosts an annual adjudicated Speech Arts and Music Festival for all ages in March. The festival de-emphasizes competition in favour of providing a supportive venue for performers of all ages. The Wendy Brook Music Festival provides an opportunity for our youth, and adults to develop their vocal and instrumental skills, confidence, audience appreciation skills, and love of the arts. Participants may perform in groups, quartets, trios, duets, or solos. Entries included Vocal (singing, choir, musical theatre), Piano, Strings, Instrumental (recorders, hand chimes), Band, Speech Arts (choral, poetry, readings, Reader’s Theatre, skits), Ukrainian Language (vocal and speech), French (speech).”