The Ecole St. Mary Music Department is set to celebrate their successful year with the annual Spring Concert on Wednesday at Sacred Heart Cathedral.
The concert will feature performances from St. Mary School Jazz Band, Grade 9 Band, Grade 10 Band, Senior Band, and the St. Mary High School Choir.
Julie Abbs, a band teacher at Ecole St. Mary High School, said the Music Department has had a successful year.
“We worked really hard all year and we had really good success at (the Prince Albert) Music Festival this year,” Abbs said. “We just had lots of good feedback from adjudicators and mark scored well in a range where we felt very comfortable and proud of ourselves.”
She said that each of the band and choir members had the opportunity to go on extracurricular trips throughout the year. The senior band went to Banff in March, while the Grade 9 band performed recently in Moose Jaw. The choir also participated in a festival in Regina.
The Ecole St. Mary Jazz Band, under the direction of Shannon Fehr, also had the chance to perform at the first ever Prince Albert Big Band Festival at Vincent Massey in March. They also performed their annual winter concert in December.
“We just had lots of really cool experiences to perform and learn together this year,” Abbs said.
Abbs described Wednesday’s concert as a big celebration of all that the music department has achieved this year.
“We just get one final chance to perform together and play together and just show the community what we’ve done,” Abbs said. “I’m very proud of the students and so is Mrs. Fehr. We’re just excited to share it with everybody who wants to come out.”
Abbs said each group will have four or five of their own songs to perform. They also plan to have a big mass concert band with all the Grade 10s, 11s, and 12s performing.
Abbs said the songs include selections from the Prince Albert Music Festival, some new songs, some Disney songs and some traditional concert band selections.
“There’s a pretty good variety of things,” she said.
Abbs is also excited about the plans for the Choir, which will perform five songs.
“We’ll do three together as a full group, and then I’ve split them up into a men’s chamber choir and a women’s chamber choir for each for a song,” Abbs said. “That’ll be something new and we’re really excited about that.”
The St. Mary Music Program Spring Concert is at 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Sacred Heart Cathedral. Admission is by donation. Abbs encourages everyone to come out and celebrate the program.
“I hope people come and support the students and all the hard work they’ve put in this year because they really have been working hard and there’s A lot of excitement around this concert, so hopefully we have a good turnout,” she said.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
