The longest-running festival on the Sunshine Coast - the 31st Festival of the Performing Arts - wraps up this weekend with a Piano Encore Concert at Raven's Cry Theatre.
The concert is set for 2 p.m., April 3, with admission by donation to benefit the awards and scholarships fund.
In the course of this year's volunteer-run festival, professional adjudicators have reviewed 312 performances (with participants numbering much higher, as many bands and choirs were among those performing) and awarded the largest-ever number of prizes, medals and trophies.
Five outstanding young musicians will represent the Sunshine Coast at the B.C. Music Festival in Victoria: the golden-voiced Dora Brooks (vocals), multi-talented Stephen Beckmyer and Jeremy Williams (strings), Neal Andrews (piano) and flautist Maija Lund (woodwinds).
Driven by love of music and a wish to support emerging musicians, volunteers and the working board (who list vacuuming the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre and piano moving in their job descriptions) devote hours of time to the festival organization. Still, fund-raising to cover rent venues, pay adjudicator and technician fees and fill the awards pool is an ongoing chore, according to retiring festival president Dorothy Fraser. "All the money we get to run this thing comes from community donations and a grant from the SCRD," Fraser said. "We have wonderful community support from various businesses, particularly Marketplace IGA in Wilson Creek, who sponsored the festival highlights performance at Raven's Cry on Sunday, March 28.
Fraser commended local businesses that have lost trade to the recently-arrived big box stores yet still demonstrate outstanding corporate citizenship and generosity to local events like the festival. This year, at the suggestion of director Peggy Malcolm, the festival instituted a Patron of the Day program. Malcolm promptly became the inaugural patron.
Dr. D. R. Bland, Marla Chatham, Betty Jane Norris, Betty Paterson, Elise Buqué, Shirley Huggins and the firm of Jones and Whitely quickly followed her lead, ensuring that eight of the 10 festival days' expenses were covered and enabling the festival to increase the prize money pool distributed among the young performers.
"We don't want to build up a bank account," says Fraser. "We want to give it to kids who need it, to further their musical education."
Many of the Coast's young musicians who grew up performing at the festival have continued on to more advanced studies in music (notably, pianist Mark Andrews and multi-talented violinist/saxophonist Erin Macdonald).
However, Fraser notes, you have to look at the economics of the world.
"Many of these students will likely be earning their living somewhere else, and even if they don't go into a music program, they will still continue with music for love of it," she added.
Fraser cited the example of former festival participant Heidi Cordsen, now active in the film industry.
"Who knows where her music will take her," says Fraser.
Known for decades as the Sunshine Coast Music Festival, when organizers finally decided to register their event as a society, they discovered that the name they had used so long had been usurped and officially registered by organizers of the short-lived Country Music Festival. The group simply chose a new name and continued their focus on young musicians.
Recently, the Festival of Performing Arts has extended its mandate to present the annual Lark in the Park celebration of youth in music at Winegarden Park in Gibsons. Held on the second Sunday of September, the event features performances by outstanding groups of young musicians (and older musicians with a strong mentoring ethic).
This year's concert on Sept. 12 will feature Choralations Teen Choir, the Suncoast Concert Band and perennial favourites the Coast String Fiddlers in a waterfront setting. Admission is by donation.
