The 2014 Kootenay Festival of the Arts finished its successful 80th year after two weeks of adjudicated performances and highlight concerts at the Capitol Theatre in Nelson.
The festival is an adjudicated performing arts festival sponsored by the Nelson Music Festival Association, a nonprofit society managed by a volunteer executive board from the West Kootenay.
The festival provides a showcase for young people in the area to demonstrate their talent in categories of piano, vocal and choral arts, strings and guitar, speech and dramatic arts, and dance.
The purpose of the local festival is to bring in adjudicators for each discipline to work with students. Adjudicators nominate candidates, whom they feel have reached a standard of proficiency in their respected discipline, to the provincial festival. Performing Arts BC, an association of 34 regional festivals, hosts the provincial finals where the candidates have the opportunity to be selected for the National Festival.
Alternating between Nelson and Trail, this year’s Kootenay Festival adjudicators in Nelson nominated eight finalists for the Performing Arts BC Provincial Festival in Penticton, to be held in June.
Adjudicators also nominated 11 observers who together with the finalists will participate in workshops, master classes, seminars and concerts in all disciplines including dance, piano, speech and dramatic arts, voice and strings.
More than 400 performing young artists participated in this year’s festival in Nelson, and 66 of those received cash awards.
The eight nominated candidates this year in Penticton are: Alexis Brooks of Penticton (Senior Modern Dance); Bethany Johnson of Rossland (Junior Stage Dance); Alexandra Deane of Nelson (Junior Piano); Espoir Segbeaya of Nelson (Senior Speech and Dramatic Arts); Sebastian Bodine of Nelson (Intermediate Speech and Dramatic Arts); Galen Boulager of Nelson (Intermediate Classical Voice); Michael Marsland of Nelson (Intermediate Musical Theatre); and Isabel McAleer of Nelson (Junior Classical Voice).
Nominated as observers are: Emilia Hofmann and Brynn Stredwick of Rossland (Junior Ballet); Kaylie Featherling of Cranbrook (Junior Stage Dance); Faith Wilkinson of Kelowna (Intermediate Ballet); Caitlin Paulson of Cranbrook (Intermediate Modern Dance); Jenn Walsh of Nelson (Junior Piano); Nemia Darwel of Nelson (Senior Speech and Dramatic Arts); Emma Chart of Nelson (Intermediate Musical Theatre); Max Thompson of Nelson (Junior Classical Voice); Amelia Ford of Nelson (Junior Musical Theatre); and Sebastian Bodine of Nelson (Junior Strings).
The 2015 Kootenay Festival of the Arts will be held in Trail next year. For further information, please check out the website at kootenayfestivalofthearts.ca.