The Bow Valley High School band earned gold at a music competition – and scored a heap of Canadian history – on a recent trip to Nova Scotia.
Band director Rob Billington said 35 members of the senior concert band from Grades 10 to 12 travelled to the East Coast for six days to take part in the Atlantic Festival of Music.
The full concert band, as well as the senior jazz band, each performed three pieces at Mount St. Vincent University – and brought home gold awards for their efforts.
“That’s as good as it gets, which is very nice,” said Billington, adding adjudicators commented on how strong Bow Valley’s players were both technically and musically, which was a huge source of pride for the group.
“We have a pretty significant focus on establishing really, really strong fundamentals ... The better their technical expertise is, the more able they’re able to play good pieces well.
“While we focus on those fundamentals, we also work on developing musicality at the same time … if students are playing scales, they’re not just pounding out the notes – they’re making them musical as we go,” said Billington.
“There’s a tremendous amount of satisfaction with knowing that all of the hard work we do in the classroom translated to the stage.”
In addition to the instrumental showcase, Billington said students took time to take in the sights as well – the group visited the picturesque town of Lunenberg, the village of Peggy’s Cove (famous for the Peggy’s Point Lighthouse), the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and more during their six-day East Coast adventure.
“It was a combination of music and local history that we took in,” he said. “We tend to pack our tours pretty full so our people come home full.”
The group is now gearing up for Bow Valley’s biggest local concert of the year – Black and White Night, which transforms the school gym into a sophisticated space on May 30 and showcases all of the school’s ensembles.
