The Vernon branch of the B.C. Registered Music Teachers Association is hosting its annual music festival, featuring the talents of local voice and piano students.
The voice portion of the adjudicated festival takes place all day this Friday and Saturday morning at All Saints Anglican Church.
Adjudicator Danica Hoffart is coming from Alberta, where she has been on the faculty at Red Deer College since 2001.
Hoffart teaches voice, musical theatre, music history, ear training, and directs the chamber choir. She has been the musical director for the theatre department’s cabarets and numerous productions including The Wizard of Oz, South Pacific, Footloose, Cabaret, and The Sound of Music.
In addition to her teaching, Hoffart maintains an active adjudicating and performance schedule. She has been featured as a soprano soloist with the Red Deer Symphony, the Red Deer Chamber Singers, and the Concordia University Choir.
She holds a bachelor of music and master’s in music from the University of Alberta, and is currently a PhD candidate in musicology at the University of Calgary.
The piano portion of the festival happens Saturday afternoon and evening and carries on through to Thursday, March 6, again at All Saints Anglican. (No classes will be held on March 5.)
Adjudicator Joseph Berarducci teaches piano and theory at the Kelowna Community Music School after having retired as a school music teacher and sessional instructor at a number of universities and colleges.
An examiner with the Royal Conservatory of Music, he has a bachelor of music from UBC and a master’s in music from Western Washington University. Other credentials include Carl Orff, Schulwerk, and Kodaly training.
Berarducci is the co-author of the Windsong recorder series as well as the nursery rhyme suite, The Tale of Humpty Dumpty, the latter written with his wife. He also developed and conducted the Musical Storytime series for the Pacific Symphony in Costa Mesa, Calif.
The festival ends in a gala concert featuring scholarship winners at All Saints, Sunday, March 9 at 2 p.m. Admission is by donation.
For more scheduling information, contact Carol Stromberg at 250-542-5873.
