The Winkler Festival of the Arts takes over the Evangelical Mennonite Mission Church (600 Southview Dr.) the next two weeks for four sessions of performances.
They’ll kick things off April 9 with the return of speech arts, a category that hasn’t been at the festival since the late ‘90s.
“We have six entries. It’s a start,” says festival president Dorothy Plett, who noted a speech arts workshop held earlier this year was well attended, so they feel the interest is out there.
The categories this year include solo spoken poetry classical, Canadian, and 20th/21st century in various age groups and one solo Gr, 4-6 prose reading.
Other Manitoba festivals have kept speech arts on their rosters, and the Winkler committee felt the time was right to try to bring it back locally.
“We see these things happening at the provincials—you can get recommended from your local festivals to provincials for speech arts—and one of our committee members actually went and watched some or it and she was just enthralled,” Plett shares. “We thought, ‘This is something we just miss having.’
“And then there was a liaison from the homeschool world of southern Manitoba who reached out to me and asked if there was a chance of having something like this in Winkler, and that was just the push we needed.”
Starting small with this category suits the festival fine this year, though they do hope more participants will take part in the future.
It’s an invaluable skill for kids to hone, Plett observes.
“It’s about how to present, how to be in front of people, how to read things with expression and be able to not be absolutely tongue-tied and nervous just because you are now asked to read something in front of somebody.”
Loretta Thorliefson will be the adjudicator for speech arts along with the choral and vocal sessions. Thorliefson has taught English and choral music extensively at the junior high and high school levels and has mentored many individual students and speech choirs in festivals.
The festival will also include performances from three choirs (with sessions taking place at the church and Northlands Parkway Collegiate) on April 9, the vocal sessions representing a range of genres and ages April 9-10, and then piano April 13-17. A full program is available online at winklerfestivalofthearts.com.
Piano is by far the most popular category, with over 300 entries.
“Piano is sort of what has caught on, because there’s a lot of kids who take piano lessons in this area,” Plett says, “and this is a great opportunity for extra education exposure.”
That’s the festival’s mission for all its sessions, she notes: to give performers a chance to showcase their skills while also learning a little something from the adjudicators that might help them grow in their craft.
Adjudicating the piano sessions is accomplished Winnipeg pianist and piano teacher Everett Hopfner.
The festival wraps things up with the awards night on Friday, April 17 starting at 6 p.m., where the top entrants will take the stage once again to perform.
“It’s always a great concert,” Plett says.
The community is welcome to attend any festival session or the awards night.
Admission is free, though donations to keep the festival going are most welcome.
As always, the organization is on the lookout for people willing to get involved as volunteers, which are truly the lifeblood of the event.
“We always need more help,” Plett says. “If we’re going to continue to offer this many festival options, then we do need more committee members.”
There are a range of roles available, including those dealing with administration or organizing volunteers.
“So that doesn’t even have to be a musically oriented person,” Plett notes.
Connect with the festival through their website if you’d like to get involved.
