The Prince Albert Arts Hall of Fame welcomed four inductees on Friday evening at the EA Rawlinson Centre.
Brian Sklar and the Prince Albert Concert Band were inducted in the performing arts-music category, Darcy Blahut in the literature category and Lana Wilson in the builder category.
Adreanna Gareau chair of the Prince Albert Arts Board acted as emcee for the evening along with Elliot Byers.
The format for this year’s induction was changed to having supper before and the induction take place on the stage of the EA Rawlinson Centre.
“The new format we’ve already been kind of discussing it, the pros and cons, but it’s one of those things where you don’t know how it will be until you try it,” Gareau said.
The evening featured performances by local performers during the induction and Gareau was pleased to expand what the induction does.
“We really were happy to have local performers be part of the night in addition to our inductees, so that it was a true celebration of the arts,” she said. “(We) celebrate people who have enriched our community, but also to put a spotlight on the people who do this every day and give them an opportunity to perform because we do art to share.
“You need an audience to share it with and we had an audience gathered. We thought, why not put some performers in front of them.”
The evening opened with a performance by Iron Swing Singers and included a poetry reading and a concluding performance by the newly formed Resonate Choir.
Lana Wlson is presented their Prince Albert Arts Hall of Fame trophy by Adreanna Gareau at the Prince Albert Arts Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Friday at the EA Rawlinson Centre.
Brian Sklar is presented his Prince Albert Arts Hall of Fame trophy by Adreanna Gareau at the Prince Albert Arts Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Friday at the EA Rawlinson Centre.
Gareau said that they wanted to have performers across the performing arts spectrum and wanted to include dance, but only had so much time.
“But having Iron Swing, they were here last year as well, so we really wanted to have Iron Swing come back again. It’s just such a powerful way to open the evening and Resonate is very new,” she said.
The poetry reading was supposed to be done by Lynda Monahan who was unable to attend due to illness.
Gareau said some poetry readings seem almost a little niche, but do well in Prince Albert when someone hosts them. She said that having a poetry reading would expose people in the audience to the joy of spoken word.
“The people who go to poetry readings are people who are poets themselves (and) in my experience already have a standing interest in it,” Gareau said.
“It’s too bad Lynda was sick and couldn’t be here, but it was lovely to be able to read some selections from her brand new book that she just launched in the last few weeks.”
Having four inductees in one year is a bit unusual for the Arts Hall of Fame. Gareau said they had so many nominees, they decided to expand the number of inductions.
She said that the board would like to see nominations come in as soon as the call for nominations for 2025 comes out.
“If you know someone who’s worthy, definitely nominate them and if you did nominate someone this year and they weren’t chosen, we roll them over to next year so they’ll be considered then too because it is very hard to choose,” she said.
Gareau added that they wanted to represent as many categories as they could through the Arts Hall of Fame.
Prince Albert Concert Band member Peter Lozinski spoke about the band during the ceremony. Arts educator Jesse Campbell introduced Lana Wilson. The Rev. Shawn Stanford-
Beck introduced Darcy Blahut and fellow Arts Hall of Fame nominee Donny Parenteau introduced Brian Sklar, who regaled the crowd with stories of the music scene in Prince Albert.
Gareau said that feedback on the new format for the Arts Hall of Fame is always welcome.
The Arts Board’s next Part for the Arts will be a Margo Fournier Tribute One Day Choir at the Margo Fournier Arts Centre under the direction of Brock Skomoroski and Kayleigh Skomoroski on Nov. 3.
“We’re trying a bit of a new approach for our next Part for the Arts instead of it being a professional enrichment sort of day specifically for artists. We want it to be something that’s open to absolutely anyone,” she said.
Gareau said that all of the Parts for the Arts are helpful, but the new one will be special.
“Our voice is the one instrument that doesn’t cost us anything. It’s accessible to anybody, and so that means that saying is accessible to anybody, whether you think you can sing or not. And so yeah, we want it to be within everyone’s reach, young or old, and it will be at the Margo Fournier Arts Centre. And I think it’s just going to be a really great day. It’s going to be beautiful,” Gareau said.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
