The Sunshine Coast Festival of the Performing Arts will take place April 11 to 30. For instrumentalists, dancers, singers, and orators, festivals are important opportunities to polish up performances and receive valuable feedback from select expert adjudicators. For aspiring amateurs living in small communities, with few opportunities to perform, festivals are important events on the calendar. While a very successful virtual festival was held in 2021, after two years of having performances postponed, cancelled, and sidelined by the pandemic, this year’s in-person festival is eagerly anticipated.
Serena Eades, director of the Serena Eades Academy of Music, has experienced the benefits of our festival opportunities both as a young performer and as a teacher. In her words:
“The SC Festival of the Performing Arts has been a part of the fabric of the Sunshine Coast community for generations, and a significant part of the lives of amateur musicians, their families, and teachers for 49 years. I grew up preparing my pieces for performance for the SCFPA the whole year, every year, and it is and was a really important part of a student’s goal setting and learning for the year.”
The festival has a wide array of classes and often several levels within each class. This opens up opportunities for more community members. Keen performers can often enter more than one class/level.
The 2022 Festival has a new, but familiar, Strategic Plan with three main priorities:
The performing arts demand discipline and talent, and also courage. To stand up and perform, then wait anxiously for a judge’s critique, is a uniquely vulnerable moment in the lives of young amateurs. Sensitive and skilled judges are at the heart of a successful festival. They offer the encouragement and expertise that participants need to move their art forward. New adjudicators are carefully chosen each year.
Eades explains: “Adjudicators are chosen based on Performing Arts BC recommendations, as well as referrals within the performing arts communities. This year our selection of adjudicators took into account one of the key focus areas of our Strategic Plan: to promote inclusion, equity, diversity, and accessibility. We are really excited and honoured to host all of the exceptional adjudicators that we have coming for this year’s festival.”
The Sunshine Coast Festival of the Performing Arts will host more than 200 eager participants between April 11 and April 30, with a highlights concert Saturday May 11 at the Heritage Theatre.
