Performers aged 4 to 84 shine at Edmonton Music and Speech Arts Festival

Performers from four to 84 are showcasing their talents at the 117th annual Edmonton Music and Speech Arts Festival, where melodies and stories come together in an eclectic celebration of the arts.

“This festival is the oldest of its kind in Canada,” executive director Heather Bedford-Clooney told Postmedia.

“Because we’ve been around for so long, I have lots of people that enter the festival, and their mothers were in the festival, and their grandmothers were in the festival,” she said.

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It “used to be thought of as kind of cutthroat,” she explained, adding it’s the fest formerly known as Kiwanis.

“What they used to do years ago… They’d bring the adjudicators over from England, and they’d start them in Atlantic Canada and send them across the country, so by the time they got to Moose Jaw, where I grew up, they were as miserable as hell. They were tired, and they had too many late-night parties,” Bedford-Clooney said.

“It’s not like that anymore. We bring adjudicators from all over the country, we bring Canadians in, and they are teachers as well, and they’re here to inspire you.”

The festival features vocal, instrumental, theatrical, and spoken showcases — some just for fun, others as competitions for scholarships — offering participants a chance to perform for an audience and receive feedback from pros. This year, there are 1,400 individual entries — many of them bands, choirs, orchestras, and ensembles — compared to the typical 2,500 entries pre-pandemic, according to Bedford-Clooney.

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“The adult classes are non-competitive, of course, and they cheer one another on,” she said.

“It’s as good as being at the hockey game, and they sing everything from musical theatre stuff to Richard Strauss or opera. It’s a wide range of repertoire.”

Never too late to start

The four-year-old is participating in speech arts, and the 84-year-old is singing, Bedford-Clooney said.

“Over the past 18 years, since I have been involved, we have had several accordion players in their 80s. People as young as three have participated in violin and piano,” she said.

The extravaganza demonstrates it’s never too late to be a beginner.

“I’ve got an over-50 singing class of beginner singers,” she said, highlighting how beneficial lifelong learning is.

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“People work their lives, and then they retire, and they think, ‘I’d like to do something.’ It used to be thought (that) it’s too late to start taking piano lessons or taking singing lessons or anything like that. But nobody feels that way anymore, so they begin to take lessons,” Bedford-Clooney said.

The festival allows students to refine their technique with an adjudicator, she said, adding, “They always go out feeling really good about themselves.” This sense of accomplishment creates positive educational experiences.

“Of the thousand students I’ve taught, I think, there (have) been very few (who) haven’t felt better after they’ve performed in the festival than they did before. If they didn’t win, doesn’t matter, but they just felt proud of what they’d done,” Bedford-Clooney said.

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You can take lessons for years, but if you never perform anywhere, what’s the point?

“You come into the festival and you see all kinds of other kids that are doing the same thing that you’re doing, and you listen to them play,” she said.

“You may hear things you would like to play, and it just makes quite a community.”

Everyone is welcome, Bedford-Clooney said.

“Anyone that gets hold of me and wants to play at the festival, I’ll find them a place to play — except the bagpipes. I don’t think I can do the bagpipes because we’re not outside — unless they want to play their chanter.”

The Edmonton Music and Speech Arts Festival runs from April 22 to May 4, with free performances at venues across the city.

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