The Springbank Middle School’s senior band ranked gold at MusicFest Canada.
The school took 90 Grade 7 and Grade 8 students to compete in the festival in Ottawa from May 10 to 13. Altogether, 34 bands competed in the B-200 category specifically for third and fourth year players.
The senior band competed in 2014 and 2015 at the provincial level and was awarded the ‘superior’ rating. Verna Ahner, the school’s musical educator, said that result gave them the option to compete at the national level within two years of receiving that ranking.
“We had earned the nomination two years earlier (in 2014) and I was delaying it because I was hoping the festival would be closer – it’s supposed to switch between the east and west every year and it had been in Toronto last year,” Ahner said.
When it was announced MusicFest Canada would be held in Ottawa, the school made the decision to make the trip and compete anyway.
“We won another one (in 2015) so we could have gone next year, but then it will be in Niagara Falls which wouldn’t be any easier,” Ahner said.
The band performed three songs overall at the festival.
“They had to do a test piece from a required list of pieces, and then the program had to be built around that test piece to show off their variety and versatility,” Ahner said.
Ahner said the band chose the Canadian song Where Mountains Touch the Sky for their test piece and had a lot of fun determining the messages within the song. They even talked with the song’s composer, Robert Buckley, to get a better understanding of how it should be played and to garner feedback.
“Then we chose a march from an Albertan composer, Brian Applebee, as kind of our represent Alberta moment for our next piece. Then we finished with a very rollicking Arabian dance tune that featured a lot of percussion and neat sounds – they really liked it,” Ahner said.
Two students who attended the trip, Grade 7 student Darian Welsh and Grade 8 student Hannah Gould, said it was awesome to travel to Ottawa to compete. It was the first time either student has competed at a national level for band.
“I think it went pretty well … it was a lot more people than I expected,” said Welsh, who plays the baritone.
The festival’s adjudicators chose Gould, who plays percussion, for a 2016 National Honours Award. Ahner said each band that participates in the festival could have a member selected for this award based on their performance.
“After the performance, when I got the special award, was pretty cool,” Gould said.
Ahner clarified that while the band was awarded gold, it doesn’t mean they won the competition.
“Everything is ranked on a standard – so gold doesn’t mean first place, it just means that you’ve attained the highest level of standard,” Ahner explained.
Still a great accomplishment, the school and the students are all very proud.
“We were one of seven in our category to be awarded a gold standard … That basically means that we’re one of the top band programs in Canada for our age level. We’re all gloating a little bit I have to admit,” Ahner said with a laugh.
While they were in Ottawa, the group also visited multiple museums and even had brief encounters with the two famous Canadian Justin’s – Trudeau and Beiber.
“We saw Justin Trudeau at an art museum,” Welsh said.
“He was doing a presentation there. We were late for supper because we had to wait for his security detail to let us into the museum,” Ahner added.
“We also had a Justin Beiber sighting … someone saw him down a back alley somewhere,” Ahner said.
