The 2025 Prince Albert Music Festival officially began at Messiah Lutheran Church on Monday, March 3.
This will be the 77th edition of the Prince Albert Music Festival. The event is put together by the Prince Albert Musical Festival Association (PAMFA). “It’s a pretty exciting thing,” said Jordana Thiessen President of Prince Albert Music Festival Association. “There’s just a variety of musical talent.”
The festival began with piano students taking the stage on Monday and Tuesday, followed by instrumental performances at the Mont St. Joseph Home on Thursday and Friday. Choral, vocal, and musical theatre groups will be on stage from March 13-16 at Messiah Lutheran, and band concerts will run from March 18-21 at Carlton Comprehensive Public High School.
There will also be awards concerts on March 7, March 21, and March 22.
Thiessen said this is a particularly busy year because the festival does not have a full-time coordinator. She said it’s one of a few open positions on the board. The current members, she said, are doing their best to make the event happen.
“We have a few members of our board who really stepped up creating the program,” she said. “There’s a lot of work everyone does anyways, but taking on and dividing up those festival coordinator responsibilities really was a lot more, and it’s not a sustainable thing. We are desperately hoping someone will come forward to be a member of our board.”
Thiessen said one of the festival’s big benefits is exposure. It’s not only a chance for young musicians and singers to perform, it’s also a place where they can receive feedback from professional musicians who come from the area.
Thiessen cited piano adjudicator Kathleen Lohrenz Gable, who is originally from Prince Albert, as an example.
“At this morning’s final session, our piano coordinator used that as a reminder to all the young piano performers that if you want to put in the work, you can be from Prince Albert and get to amazing places and do amazing things,” Thiessen said.
This will be the first year the music festival holds an event at Mont St. Joseph. Thiessen said they’re grateful for the opportunity to use the space. She said the venues and donors are a big part of the festival’s success. “I want to say thank you to Messiah Lutheran Church, Mont St Joseph and Carlton for being our venues this year, to everyone who donated scholarships, the performers, and of course the kids themselves, the teachers and the parents. This could not be possible without all of them,” she said.
