MANITOWANING—Assiginack Public School “All Star” Concert Band has performed at two music festivals over the month of March.
On March 1, students from Grades 6-8 travelled to Sudbury Secondary School to compete in Assiginack Public School’s very first music festival, the Northern Ontario Music Festival. At this festival, the students were able to watch a number of school band performing before taking the stage themselves. When it was their time to perform on the big stage inside the Sheridan Auditorium, the group performed in front of an audience of approximately seventy-five students and teachers from different schools.
The band first played ‘The Rock and Roll’ and ‘The Hey Song’ by Paul Lavender. The song went pretty well for their first song ever performed on a stage. With built up confidence, the band moved on to a classic Olympic song, ‘Bugler’s Dream.’ The last of the list was ‘Flight of the Banshee’ by Roland Barrett. This song was the band’s best performance of the day.
After an informative workshop with one of the adjudicators, the students were pleased to learn that they achieved a silver plaque. The concert band would repeat their performance at the Sudbury Kiwanis Music Festival later that month, earning another well-deserved silver standing with a score of 82 percent.
As much as the band improved, the experience wouldn’t have been possible without their music teacher and conductor Mr. David Young. He encouraged the students to try something outside their comfort zone and created a concert band consisting of instruments from the flute to the big trombones.
Overall it was an amazing opportunity for students to go and perform, receiving feedback on ways to grow musically and how to work together. The music festivals were capped off by the band students having the chance to go play Laser Tag.
