The 44th annual Lac La Biche and District Music Festival wrapped up last week after another year of students showing off their musical talents. But the festival left a mark on one of its five adjudicators, Sheryl Bowhay.
The 44th annual Lac La Biche and District Music Festival wrapped up last week after another year of students showing off their musical talents. But the festival left a mark on one of its five adjudicators, Sheryl Bowhay.
Bowhay - specializing in instrumental educating, teaching and adjudicating orchestras, choirs from elementary to high school level music students - was very impressed with the many talents, music genres, and dedication shown throughout her three days of adjudicating.
“It was wonderful,” she said. “To have that much music variety makes it a lot more inclusive for all students.”
During her time adjudicating the Lac La Biche festival, Bowhay was treated to many classroom based ensembles from a variety of students. One day she highlighted in particular was the first day of her adjudicating, April 19.
She said she was impressed with the variety of ensembles being treated to handbell choirs, guitars, ukuleles of all ages. One elementary group in particular featured Grade 6 and kindergarten students playing a folk song featuring a small choir, boom-wackers, keyboard, drums and a ukulele.
“The music was arranged to facilitate all those different levels and yet perform at an amazing quality and an amazing level,” she said. “It shows tremendous mastery on the teachers' part.”
Having adjudicated in Lac La Biche instrumental section five years ago, Bowhay has seen some great improvements with the festival. The biggest improvement she noticed was the great increase of entries in her event.
She noted a large majority of the bands performing where also from outside of the Lac La Biche area coming in from Cold Lake and Bonnyville.
Bowhay believes a big reason for this increase is the “remarkable efforts” the local music teachers are putting towards their students.
“There was a lot more entries in the band. What I think is most notable about that is the remarkable teachers who have stayed in the community, built, and invested their time and energy into their program,” she said.
“I know for a fact that the last time I was here the only bands I would have adjudicated where coming from outside of Lac La Biche...it’ s really neat to see the growth in programs.”
Bowhay said seeing this type of growth over the past five years is great based on the importance of bringing music into the students life, and the rewarding feeling a student gets hearing praises from a professional on top of their friends and family.
“As a young student I so remember the impact it had on me,” she said. “To prepare something for someone outside of my community to critically evaluate is really motivating.”
“It’ s very affirming,” she added. “Somebody from far away telling you, ‘you’ re doing a good job’ seems to have even more impact then the teacher you see every week.”
Having adjudicated in larger centers, Bowhay said this festival is one of the few where she finds herself evaluating for more than one day, admiring the participation and engagement in the arts within the community.
“I’ ve been adjudicating all over the province this year and for me to be adjudicating in Lac La Biche for three days is a real testament to this community and what’ s going on in this community,” she said.
