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Meet Ella and Ava Hawthorne. They are students of Karen Rempel, and they just finished performing “Skip To My Lou” at the end -of-the-year recital. Not only do these girls love their piano lessons, but they also have the best boots in town! Well done, ladies!

What a tremendous wrap-up event for another wonderful school year! Despite the threat of rain, people were getting their hoedown on in an array of amazing costumes! Thank you SO MUCH to all of the volunteers who worked so tirelessly with set up, take down, and all the Hootenanny shenanigans in between. And a huge thank you to everyone who came to participate! Looking forward to next year already!

Jennika is a piano student of Karen Rempel’s, and she has been for the last 10 years. Music runs in her family, and she loves working with Karen because she loves the dedication Karen commits to her students. She says that because Karen’s goes above and beyond, her students develop a special bond that lasts a long time.

Jennika is a grade 11 student at Kalamalka Secondary in Coldstream, currently working on her Grade 10 Royal Conservatory for piano. Her achievements in piano include winning the top piano award at the Vernon Teachers Music Festival for 6 consecutive years as well as this past spring. In 2018, Jennika competed as a provincial nominee at the Kiwanis Provincial Piano Festival in Victoria, as well as performed as the opening act at the Vernon & District Performing Arts for the NOCCA concert series.  She has also achieved First Class Honours with Distinction for 5 consecutive years for RCM piano exams.

The piece she is playing below is Copland’s piece “The Cat and the Mouse”, which is the piece she played at the Scholarship Recital last month, winning her the Bourcet Engineering Scholarship. Congratulations Jennika, well done!

It’s here! It’s here! Country Fair is here! Come check out the Mystery Jars, the cake walk, the fish pond, the pie tent, all of the games, the photo booth, and more! Friday from 4pm-7pm, get your Hootenanny Hoedown game face on, we are going to do this! Extra points for dressing up and bringing your square dance moves 🙂 Bring your family and friends for the greatest wind-up party of the season.

Jennika Bobryk is a grade 10 piano student here at the Music School. She takes private lessons and piano group lessons with Karen Rempel, and has taken theory with Geoff Barker…this all means she spends a lot of time perfecting her skills with the piano.

Karen’s students performed at their end of year recital this past weekend, and Jennika played Elegie by Rachmanioff. Watch as she plays this piece with such passion and conviction!

Country Fair is around the corner, and we are starting to collect the Mystery Jars! If you are interested in participating, feel free to drop off a jar filled with all kinds of goodies! Bubbles, candy, art supplies, little toys, stickers, glow-in-the-dark jewelry are some ideas you can use to fill up your Mystery Jar. Feel like covering the jar to make it even trickier to guess what is inside? Fantastic! Bring them by the office when they are filled up, or put them in a box that is waiting outside of the office. The more Mystery Jars we have, the better! Don’t have a jar but would still like to participate? No problem! We have some extra ones here at the school that you can use and fill up. The best part of the suspense is watching the kids try and figure out what is in their jar!

Country Fair: June 7th, 4pm-7pm. See you there!

Do you have a young child who LOVES to sing? Do they sing in the car, in the bathtub and in the grocery store? Then we have the perfect group program for them to bring out their inner Celine Dions and Michael Bubles! Check out Kim van Wensem’s class for kids aged 4-5, on Tuesdays at 1:00pm.

These aspiring singers will play singing games, participate in fun learning activities in a relaxed setting, and learn the basics of vocal technique, breathing, pitch, rhythm, music notation, solfege, performance, musical theatre and more! The cost is $504 for the full year (September to June), and only $56/month! Register your singer today by calling the Music School at 250-545-4977.

Do you love singing, dancing, and getting your ‘Queen’ on? Glee is looking for you to perform Bohemian Rhapsody! Auditions for the December 2019 performance are coming up, June 22nd and 23rd at 1:00pm. Give Therese Parent a call to learn more, 250-307-7701.

Noah is in grade 8 piano with Daisy Penner, and played Mozart’s piece ‘Sonata in C Major, 1st Movement’ at the Scholarship Recital this past weekend. Noah did such a great job, he won the Peter and Pauline Legg Memorial Scholarship! Listen to the speed of his fingers hitting every key so effortlessly. Well done Noah, we can’t wait to hear your next recital piece!

Jax sang ‘Lachen und weinen’ in a breathtaking performance at the Scholarship Recital on Saturday. He is a grade 8 voice student of Kimberley van Wensem, and lives for the fine arts. He won the Vernon Community Singers Scholarship, a local multi-generational choir. The choir has two sessions per year; with concerts in December and April, and they share their love of music and community spirit by supporting local non-profit music education organizations with financial assistance.

Congratulations Jax!