Bright stars compete at national festival
Saskatoon pianist Sophie McBean, 21, is taking aim at the best of two career opportunities.
As a major player at the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association finals in Saskatoon, McBean will represent Team Saskatchewan in the national finals in Ottawa from Aug. 10-12. In doing so, she is following in the footsteps of her sister, Katie, who grew up in Saskatoon and was studying in London, Ont. in 2016 when she competed for Ontario and earned third place in the strings division.
Music has been McBean’s calling for several years but her other happy news this summer is that, after four years at the University of Saskatchewan, she has been accepted to study in the College of Medicine.
McBean has been a student of Bonnie Nicholson, long-time teacher and accompanist and a member of the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association’s board of directors.
Nicholson says “Sophie’s piano playing is passionate and electric. It doesn’t seem to matter that her frame is small because every note comes from her physical core. The sense of forward momentum in her performances can border on the dangerous and is most exciting.”
Winning the trip to Ottawa was one of Sophie’s accomplishments at the provincial finals. She was a provincial winner and scholarship recipient in the Wallis Memorial senior Beethoven class and the Gale Glenn Memorial senior 20th or 21st Century Canadian piano class. She advanced to the Grand Award finals where she won the Blanche Squires Memorial bronze award of $500 and the Anna Klassen Memorial piano award of $400.
Others on Team Saskatchewan going to the national festival are bass-baritone Joshua Hendrickson from Regina in the voice category; violinist Joanne Peng from Moose Jaw in the strings category; alto saxophonist Cole Knutson from The Battlefords in the woodwinds category; trombonist Dominic Ghiglione from Regina in the brass category; Louren Sazon from Moose Jaw in musical theatre; and Trio Rustico (Josias Sanchez, Charlee Wielgoz and Danielle Guina) of Humboldt in the chamber group section. The Campbell Collegiate Choir of Regina will also be judged in the choral class, which is adjudicated by tapes.
In the Grand Award finals, Emma Johnson of Regina, a vocalist, won the Sister Boyle gold award of $1,000, and Peng took the Wallis Memorial award of $750. Silas Friesen gave Saskatoon a second winner at the final concert, taking the Guy Few brass honours.
Saskatoon took a fair share of the prizes in the provincial finals.
Kiaotong Wang won as the most outstanding intermediate pianist and took the intermediate 20th or 21st Century Canadian music prize. Jayden Burrows was also a double winner, taking the senior B Grade male voice award and intermediate musical theatre ballad scholarship.
There were over 260 performances at the U of S from artists who came from 47 district playoffs, with $30,000 in scholarships on the line.