Meet the Norfolk Musical Arts Festival’s volunteer board of directors. The board members work year round to plan and organize the festival. The festival is scheduled February 24 to 27 in Simcoe. Visit the website for details (www.nmaf.ca). From left are Carol Porter, Christopher Edwards, Anne McMillan, Brenda Powers, Juli Proracki, Andy Blackwood, Joanne Pond, Michelle Jackson, Darlene Homeniuk.
By Chris Abbott
Norfolk Musical Arts Festival starts on Monday, Feb. 24 and the community is invited to watch the musicians, singers, and theatre groups perform live at various locations in Simcoe.
“The full schedule is on the website (nmaf.ca),” noted Vicky Lachine, festival secretary.
“It will be busy week,” she added with a laugh. “There’s a lot of music in the community.”
The annual festival concludes on Thursday, Feb. 27.
“Thursday night is our big night. It’s our senior competition, 7 p.m. at St. James, and it involves senior competitors that the adjudicators through the week recommend from each discipline. They compete for two awards – the Instrumental Arts Cup Award and the Vocal Arts Cup, which will encompass singing and speech arts.”
Lachine said they hope to have a large audience for the senior competition. The two Cup winners receive a $1,000 award and trophy. Rotary Club of Simcoe sponsors the vocal award and the late Peter Barrett family sponsors the instrumental award.
“We really hope to get a lot of people out for that because it’s a very entertaining evening.”
The four-day festival is up about 30 entries from 2024, bringing them to about 300 registrations, with about 800-1,000 total participants across all disciplines.
“It’s definitely up from last year. This year we worked really hard with a local social media person to promote the festival, to get us more visibility on social media, and we think some of that has had an impact on getting more people involved in the festival.”
Vocal singing performances run Monday to Thursday from children to adults.
“Tuesday night is community and youth choir ensembles,” said Lachine, noting that includes Gentlemen of Harmony, Lynn Valley Voices, YTP, and Art With Heart. “That is always a very entertaining night.
Thursday morning features school choirs, including elementary and secondary schools.
“Wednesday and Thursday are busy days. Wednesday we also have English Speech Arts, which is drama basically, and a lot of the kids from Young Theatre Players are in that category, as well as other kids from local schools – all ages.”
Thursday is French Speech Arts in three categories – first language, second language and French immersion – from 9 a.m.-noon and 1-3.
Secondary and elementary school band also perform during the day on the Thursday. Entries include Holy Trinity, Simcoe Composite, Paris, McKinnon Park (Caledonia), Pauline Johnson (Brantford), Brantford Collegiate. Jarvis Community Christian School has two bands coming.
“In the evening, we have the Telephone City Musical Society Band coming from Brantford.”
On the Wednesday evening, string performers will be at St. Paul’s – with string solos, as well as a string orchestra coming from the Brantford area (Grand River Suzuki School Orchestra) and the Norfolk Strings Community Orchestra.
Ukulele and guitar events are also featured, including a ukulele ensemble from St. Cecilia School, and the Loose Strings from the Port Dover area.
Tuesday, March 4 is the highlights and award ceremony where week-long participants get their trophies and scholarships awarded by adjudicators. The night’s program will include live performances from each discipline.
“It’s also a night that we invite our sponsors. It’s just a nice evening to wrap up the whole festival week. A really enjoyable, light evening – the pressure is off by then, so it’s more for fun.”
Adjudicators include Amber Morphy (piano), Dan Warren (bands, instruments), Kelly Parkins-Lindstrom (strings), Leslie Fagan (voice, choirs), and two locals – Patricia Jones (French speech arts) and Patricia Townsend (English speech arts). A former festival performer, Silas Chinsen, is adjudicating guitar and ukulele.
Admission to festival venues is by donation. Funds raised go back into the festival – it costs just under $40,000 to run the festival.
The festival encourages people to ‘like’ and follow their Facebook and Instagram pages (Norfolk Musical Arts Festival). For more information, email Lachine at norfolkmusicalartsfestival@gmail.com.
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