The Estevan & District Music Festival is a celebration of the performing arts, offering opportunities for participants to showcase their talents in piano, vocal, instrumental, ensemble, choir, and even spoken word performances. Celebrating its 60th anniversary last year, the festival marked a major milestone with three local piano students advancing to the provincial level—the most in recent memory. This long-standing event encourages artistic growth and community connection while also providing participants with opportunities to work with professional adjudicators from across the province and beyond.
Festival President Alisha Mann shared more about what makes the event special. “It is done in a bit of a competition setting, but we try not to focus on competition so much. We just want to encourage students to have a performance opportunity and then have an opportunity to work with an adjudicator who is a highly regarded professional in their specific field. And they come from all over the province and sometimes even outside the province to work with our students, who are very lucky to have those people come into our community.”
Community support is a cornerstone of the festival, allowing for substantial scholarships and awards to be handed out. “We have great support in our community, and we give out roughly $10,000 every year in scholarships and awards to our students. And so those are in the way of cash. So that’s always exciting for kids to receive some cash after all the hard work they put into preparing their performances,” Mann said.
With the entry deadline fast approaching, Mann encouraged participants to take advantage of the festival’s online registration system. “We have an online system for our entries, and it can be found at smfa.ca and then finding our district festival, which is Estevan, and the link is there. Once you go to that website, you have to set up a profile for yourself, and then it’s very simple to enter beyond there. But if you do have questions or what classes to enter once you’re on the website, we could certainly contact myself or any member of our entry committee.”
Looking ahead, Mann noted the festival's commitment to welcoming all performers and exploring new opportunities. “We’re just looking forward to seeing many performers return and new ones as well. And if you are a new person who isn’t sure how to enter or what to enter, or if your type of performance fits, please reach out and we will find a home for it. There are, like I say, it is a competition of sorts, but we also have plenty of workshop classes. Adjudication-only classes and then non-competitive classes have just recently been added. Things like world music so that we can maybe incorporate ethnic groups as well, who are new to our community. So I look forward to growing and maybe including some of that this year, if we’re able.”
For more information or to register, visit smfa.ca and select the Estevan district.