For good reason – not only are there so many entries in this year’s event that they’ve had to add a new venue, the festival is also going ahead with the long-planned Moosic in the Park concert series featuring some of the top bands from the event.
It’s all shaping up to be another interesting and educational week for participants when things kick off on Monday, May 13.
“It’s coming along really well, we’re really happy with the way things are organizing and falling into place,” said festival organizer Jamie Fries. “We have 103 groups that will be performing next week, and that’s a record breaker for the festival, which is kind of nice because we’re celebrating our 70th year, so we’re really pleased with that.”
The event features bands from throughout western Canada taking the stage in front of a host of clinicians who will evaluate their performances. The feedback is often invaluable to the development of the young musicians and is one factor that makes Moose Jaw’s festival such a popular destination.
“One of the reasons it’s so successful is because we’ve been focussing on the educational component of the festival, which is why we get so many groups from so far away,” Fries said. “These students are really committed to making good music. Playing it, having fun with it and doing it well. Not only that, but even when those same students are in the audience, they appreciate what’s on stage and what those other performers are doing, and it’s exciting to be part of the audience when you can see the reaction as a member of the audience because they appreciate it all. They know what those performers are going through and they just lap it up, it’s great.”
Among the major changes this year is the addition of a round-table discussion with the clinicians, which will give teachers a chance to “pop in and pick the brains of the experts,” said Fries.
The most exciting addition, though, are the aforementioned concerts at the Crescent Park amphitheatre. The events will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday and will feature four bands each session playing 45-minute sets.
“We’re really looking forward to that, we’ve been talking about utilizing that amphitheatre for a couple of years, so it coincides very nicely with the 70th anniversary,” Fries said. “We’re inviting everyone in Moose Jaw to come down to the park and enjoy some great music.”
The opportunity to play the outdoor venue was one offered to the various bands taking part, with each jumping at the opportunity to show more of their repertoire than just what they played for the clinicians.
“It gives the students a little more of an opportunity to play because when they come for the festival itself they only play a couple of pieces,” Fries explained. “So having that 45 minutes gives them another option to play things that are in their folder that they’re ready to play but don’t have time for at the Festival itself.”
The festival gets underway on Monday, with performances and workshops for concert bands running from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the first of three roundtables taking place at 4:30 p.m. in the Comfort Inn boardroom.
Jazz bands and choirs take the stage beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, with the Zion United Church hosting choir, Peacock Auditorium and Mae Wilson Theatre concert bands, St. Aidan Church jazz bands and – new this year – St. Andrew’s Church will also be hosting events.
“We work hard to have all the venues in downtown Moose Jaw, so the directors feel very confident their students are safe here, because just the logistics of having your students go from point A to point B since everything is so walkable downtown,” Fries said. “It works out great and it’s a lot more convenient than it might be in a larger city like Regina or Saskatoon.”
Performances continue through Wednesday and wrap up Thursday at 4 p.m.
