Erin highschool band achieves gold customary at music pageant

ERIN  – The Erin Music Gamers Orchestra (TEMPO) band at Erin District Excessive Faculty (EDHS) was awarded the gold customary on the Golden Horseshoe Music Pageant in Ancaster on March 2.  

Twenty-two college students within the TEMPO band from Grades 9 by 12 attended the annual non-competitive music pageant, the place judges rank every band primarily based on their efficiency through the occasion. 

Over 100 faculty bands participated, and judges gave every band certainly one of 4 scores: gold, silver, bronze, or participant.  

Devices performed within the TEMPO band embody flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, French horn, and percussion — and the band practices earlier than faculty each Tuesday and Thursday morning. 

“It’s early, however it’s price it,” stated band director and music instructor Cara Cameron, noting the scholars concerned agree together with her on that. 

College students got an opportunity to vary the time as soon as practices resumed after the pandemic, however they opted to maintain assembly earlier than faculty.

Grade 12 pupil Stella DiPasquale performs trumpet and stated she “learns so much” from practices, including, they’re “a variety of enjoyable.”       

Highschool bands are vital, Cameron stated, as a result of “you’ll be able to take a mean pupil with common means, put them in a gaggle collectively, and make one thing wonderful. 

“The entire is bigger than the sum of its components,” she stated

If one particular person makes a mistake, she stated, it goes unnoticed as a result of “the remainder of the band carries you.” Which means newcomers could be a part of creating what Cameron calls “wonderful music.” 

That is particularly vital because of the social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cameron stated.

College students get to collaborate and “work in the direction of one thing till it’s wonderful, not simply adequate,” she defined, including there aren’t many probabilities for folks to do this. 

Cameron is pleased with her college students, “who’ve executed so nicely with so little time.”

She stated the group is enthusiastic, dedicated and labored laborious.

 typically assembly with pals to follow at lunchtime, outdoors of normal band follow. 

When it got here to the pageant efficiency, Cameron stated they “remembered the whole lot they discovered.” 

One of many flutists couldn’t cease smiling as a result of she knew they had been doing so nicely, she stated.

DiPasquale wasn’t shocked the group took gold. “Throughout the efficiency we might all inform we had been doing an awesome job,” she stated.

“I feel it was among the finest performances we now have executed.” 

One other musician, Cameron stated, is in Grade 9 and had solely been within the band for 4 weeks when she carried out on the pageant. 

“She was so excited to be there,” Cameron remarked. 

DiPasquale’s favorite a part of the pageant was the “actually enjoyable” clinic after their efficiency which helped them learn to enhance their efficiency. 

Throughout the clinic one of many judges performed with the band and spoke about their efficiency, providing recommendation the group hadn’t heard earlier than, based on DiPasquale. 

The clinic “undoubtedly did assist us with the following steps,” she added, and the band is making use of what it discovered throughout practices. 

The TEMPO band’s gold customary qualifies it for “MusicFest Canada the Nationals,” the largest academic music pageant on the continent, in Niagara Falls Could 15 to twenty. 

MusicFest Canada “has been round since earlier than I used to be a highschool pupil,” Cameron famous, reflecting on her personal expertise there as a part of a sextet of singers. 

She stated the pageant consists of “excessive degree” choirs, orchestras, stage bands and jazz bands. 

DiPasquale stated she’s “actually excited” to go on the journey with the band and have the possibility to carry out collectively as soon as once more.