2022-05-18
Queens County Music Festival celebrates 76 years
by KEVIN MCBAIN
LIVERPOOL - The Queens County Music Festival returned to the stage this year, this time with no disruptions. The 76th annual event was held over two days, May 2-3 with the final concert and awards held May 6 all at the Astor Theatre.
"It was great to be back. That was kind of the big accomplishment for us this year," said Kristopher Snarby, president of the Queens County Music Festival Association. "Just getting back to normal after a pretty rough couple of years."
The event was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions, then last year a full live event was planned, but then it became limited to just family, then it had to go virtual.
"It was a weird year. But this year anybody could come, we had full capacity and it was nice; nice to be back and it was nice to get the kids back on stage," he added.
Snarby said there were upwards of 130 entries for this year's event in the instrumental and voice categories, which is down quite a bit, however...
"It's a lot less than what we used to have. It used to be held over five or six days, but it's rebuilding from kind of where we left off (pre-COVID-19 restrictions). It's a building block and we're looking forward to building it back up," he said, noting there were no choirs at all this year, and in fact, no choirs operating in Queens County at all, due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The number of entries in a typical year would number between 350-400.
The final concert featured performances by trophy winners from the two days of performances.
There was also a special announcement made.
Senior student Lauren Inglis will be attending the provincial music festival competition in the brass category, in Pictou County next month. As well, pianist Noah Losier will be competing in the national junior competition which has gone completely virtual this year. Snarby noted that for the first time, juniors will no longer have to compete at the provincial level to earn a spot at nationals.
Several scholarships were handed out as well, with students receiving about $6,000 in total.
"The community is super generous. We have a lot of people who have made nice donations to help kids pay for lessons, so that is good," said Snarby. "The entries might have gone down, but the support from the community certainly didn't."
