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Gala concert celebrates performers

East Kootenay Performing Arts Festival wraps up Monady, May 11
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Some of the performers in the Key City Theatre Green Room following Monday night’s gala showcase concert

Townsman Staff

The month long East Kootenay Performing Arts Festival, which ran through April, came to a culmination Monday, May 11, with its showcase concert at the Key City Theatre in Cranbrook.

Dozens of young musicians and vocalists from around the region took to stages around Cranbrook for performances and classes in strings, voice, piano and speech and dramatic arts. Those disciplines were well-represented Monday night in a broad and varied program — poetry and song, operatic excerpts, Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein, piano, violin, Chamber Orchestra and Choir, even a rendition of a Stomping Tom Connors classic.

The gala evening featured 26 performances by individuals and groups. These included The Star Singers Boys Only, Keanu Chan, Phoebe Van Rensburg, Isabella Savage, Isabella Ferraro, Asia Franklin, the Kootenay Christian Academy Grade 5/6 Class, Jeremias and Felix Bolter, Nina Simons and Brooke Schley, Annika Murtagh, Eve MacBride, Lily Halley, the 4X4 String Quartet, Micah Meuleman, Pyper Standing and McKayla van der Roest, Carter Gulseth and Tessa Charlton, Nolan Fleming, Jueun Park, Emma Murtagh, Paris Hofmeister and Cameron Brown, the I.D.E.A.L. Chamber Orchestra, David Robertson, Gabriel Hoffman, Paulina Graham and the Vera Women's Choir.

Following are the Award winners from the East Kootenay Performing Arts Festival, and also the nominees for the Provincial Performing Arts Festival set for May 26 to May 30, in Powell River, BC.

Pictured: Paris Hofmeister and Cameron Brown, who performed Shel Silverstein’s Hungry/Mungry.

Speech Awards

Georgia Hamilton (Jim Pattison Trophy); Cameron Brown and Paris Hofmeister (Special Recognition), St. Mary's Kindergarten Class (Primary Speech Choir award), Kootenay Christian Academy Grade 6 (Intermediate Speech Choir award).

Nominees to the Provincial Performing Arts Festival

Georgia Hamilton (participant) and Eve MacBride (observer).

Strings Awards

Isabella Savage (Preliminary); Garron Stuart (Junior); Anna Cain (Intermediate); Paulina Graham (Senior); The 4X4 String Quartet (The Strings Cup). Provincial Nominee: Paulina Graham.

Piano Awards

Annika Murtagh (Junior Piano Award); Micah Meuleman (Intermediate Piano); David Robertson (Senior Piano).

Allen Reiser/EKMTA Scholarships

• Best Performance of a Baroque Piece: Michael Meuleman.

• Best Performance of a Classical Piece: David Robertson.

• Best Performance of a Romantic Piece: Trennon Aikins.

• Best Performance of an Impressionistic Piece: Katie Feng.

• Best Performance of a 20th/21st Century Piece.

Nominees to Provincials

Junior Piano: Emma Murtagh & Micah Meuleman (alternate).

Intermediate Piano: David Robertson.

Voice Awards

Pyper Standing (Primary Award); Eve MacBride (Junior Award); Tessa Charlton (Intermediate Award); Jael Wong Fehringer (Best Overall and Best Italian Performance); Women's Vera Ensemble (Best Group Performance); Gabriel Hoffman (Best Opera Performance); Asia Franklin (Best Canadian Composition Performance).

Provincial Nominees

Junior Classical Voice: Sienna Long (participant), Gwen Davies (observer).

Junior Musical Theatre: Eve MacBride (participant), Michaela Eckersley (observer).

Intermediate Classical Voice: Tessa Charlton (participant), Danica Martin (observer).

Intermediate Musical Theatre: Carter Culseth (participant), Clara MacLeod (observer).