Weyburn musicians Lindsey and Ross Van de Weyer are shown practising on the grand piano at the T.C. Douglas Centre, in preparation for the Weyburn Rotary Music Festival, which opened with piano entrants on March 8. The piano entries will continue through to March 10, and then some instrumental entries will perform the evening of March 10. Vocal entries this year are virtual, with the videos being submitted to the adjudicator, and an adjudication session will be held virtually later in March. The Stars of the Festival will be virtual also, on March 31. 1/4
The only live portion of the festival was piano, which began on Monday and will run through to Wednesday, March 10, all at the T.C. Douglas Centre, and the few entries for band-instrumental will be held on Wednesday evening. The piano adjudicator is Janis Smith. “Technically the piano is not a live festival. Due to COVID regulations, we cannot have an audience,” said Music Festival president Heather Sidloski, explaining how this portion of the festival will run. “Any parents who are coming to the festival will be given ‘volunteer duties’ to help produce our ‘virtual festival’. They will video their child’s performance and then if they choose will post it on their Facebook page and/or the Music Festival Facebook page. We do have a live adjudicator and everything else for piano will run as normal,” she explained.
Janis began teaching in 1982 and joined the faculty at the Conservatory of Performing Arts, University of Regina in 1990. For several years she was Head of the Piano Department. In addition, she sat on the Scholarship Committee and for a time was interim assistant co-ordinator, served on the Faculty Advisory Committee, and produced the “Tune into the Conservatory” TV series. Janis has served on the executive of the Regina Musical Club, Art School Sask and on the Board for OSAC. She is a member-at-large of the Sask. Registered Music Teachers’ Association. She has judged competitions for Regina Musical Club, sat on the OSAC selection committee, and has also been a member of the Music Selection Committee for the Provincial Syllabus of the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association.