The Eastern Townships School Board’s (ETSB) annual music festival is officially back and marking its 10th edition. This year’s festival is titled “ETSB United in Music,” and it’s running under the theme of music from around the world.
The music festival has been on hold for the last couple of years, but 10 ETSB schools, around 250 students in total, are coming together to fill the Massey-Vanier High School (MVHS) auditorium with music on April 24.
“Covid put us on hold, but we continued to make music throughout those years to the best that we could. Now we are back. (…) This turns out to be our tenth festival, our ten year anniversary, even though it was on hold for a couple of years,” said Bill Jarand, an MVHS music teacher that has been involved in the event since its inception. “Now we have 10 schools participating on our tenth anniversary. It’s super exciting.”
Schools from across the Eastern Townships Region, such as Richmond Regional High School, Waterloo Elementary School, and Farnham Elementary school, will be travelling to MVHS with their band and/or choir to perform for the public after practicing over the last few months with their music teachers.
“Our theme, because we always have a theme for the music festival, is music from around the world. Canada is represented many times, from my groups anyway. We always have some international students here at MVHS,” mentioned Jarand. “So in my secondary four band I have a young lady from Germany and she will be singing a song by a woman named Sarah Connor, who is German, and she will be singing in German. We’re going to have multiple languages, Spanish, German, French, English to represent the music from around the world.”
Each school will have their own individual performances, but students will also join in unison to perform two songs together, said Jarand, accompanied by the MVHS bands.
“At the end we all come together, all 300 students fill the stage, and we have a couple of bands play our common songs. This year we have chosen two songs from different parts of the world. We’re doing ‘La Bamba,’ by Ritchie Valens, and we’re doing ‘Three Little Birds,’ by Bob Marley. So both Mexico and Jamaica are represented,” he noted.
Jarand mentioned that setting up for the event requires coordination and team work, from the lighting, the sound installation, decorations, to moving instruments to the auditorium. The event is organized by a committee led by Sherbrooke Elementary School music teacher Tracey Rivette.
When asked about what impact he hopes the musical festival will have on the students participating, Jarand said that he wants students to “find a love for music.”
“A love of music, a love of live performances, a love of working hard, rehearsing, and being prepared individually and being cooperative as a band in a harmonious, joyous, performance, to then hopefully continue throughout their life with a love of music, both playing it, listening to it, and attending live performances,” he emphasized.
The event will start at noon and it is free of charge to the general public.
Listen to the full interview below: