The community is striking the right chord this week, as the annual Meadow Lake and District Music Festival continues to hit a high note. This year marks the 48th year for the festival, an event designed to not only showcase local talent but to encourage young musicians to strive for ongoing success when it comes to the performing arts. “The festival began Sunday evening (April 19) and will continue until Friday afternoon (April 24),” explained Sandra Senga, a long-time member of the local music festival committee. “We are using two venues – the Evangelical Free Church and the Carpenter High School theatre.” Senga said this year’s festival features more than 200 entires, which is about average when compared to previous years. “It’s actually up a little bit from the previous five years or so,” she added. “Our numbers fell quite a bit during the COVID-19 pandemic, but now we’re creeping back up to the average from past years.”

Senga went on to speak about the importance of the music festival, noting this is the one week out of the year where the community as a whole has an opportunity to appreciate the talents of Meadow Lake and area’s young musicians all in one spot. “Music in itself is so important to the development of a young person,” she said. “There’s so much information out there about the benefits of it. They learn the same basic skills from music as they do from sports – hand-eye coordination, self-confidence, discipline, patience, perseverance. It’s all the same things. It’s achieved in a different kind of way, but they are the same skills.” This year’s entries include everything from violin and guitar to piano to voice as well as band, individual band instruments and speech arts. Participants receive feedback from the adjudicators in attendance, results are tabulated and awards are presented to various musicians in a number of different categories.

“All of our adjudicators come from out of town,” Senga said. “We do not hire the adjudicators. Our provincial association hires them for us. They are specialists in their area, and are able to give the participants another lesson so to speak. They are adding on to the knowledge these musicians have already gained from someone else. The adjudicators are very good and very fair about pointing out what is good about a performance and perhaps what can be improved. All award winners are chosen by the adjudicators.” Senga also said the feedback provided by the adjudicators encourages the participants to continue to work hard in order to become even better performers. “They take pride in what they do, so, when someone from away tells them they’re doing a great job, that definitely helps to build their confidence and spurs them on to do even more or to work harder,” she said. Senga herself plays a significant role behind-the-scenes, ensuring everything goes off without a hitch. She has had different jobs over the years in terms of the festival, but one thing, she said, remains constant – her love for music and the pride she takes in seeing the young people perform. “Music festival is so important for the development of the students,” she said. “They learn so many things that can’t be taught by taking part in something like this… I enjoy seeing how the students grow over the years. It’s such a wonderful transformation. This is an important week for all our young musicians. They get to show us what they have to offer and we get to appreciate all the talent that is here but virtually remains hidden because we don’t get to see them or hear them all too often.”

This year’s Meadow Lake and District Music Festival awards ceremony is planned for this Sunday afternoon (April 26) at 3 p.m. at the CHS theatre. “We can’t showcase everybody that day, but everyone is welcome to come out and to enjoy performances from some of the best-of-the-best,” Senga said.