Robert Lee performs a Sonata Friday night at the Medicine Hat College Theatre during the 65th annual Rotary Music Festival. The event held its annual Rose Bowl performance showcase with limited audience allowed at the theatre. Volunteers worked to host the event and livestream it on Facebook to more than 100 people.--NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@MHNmocranker
While many events ended up cancelled last week, the 65th annual Rotary Music Festival was able to finish what it started and name a winner to the Rose Bowl.
The Rose Bowl was held Friday evening at Medicine Hat College with the audience being limited to 50 or fewer people at any given time. Performers were allowed two guests to come and watch. The only other people in the venue were the adjudicators and festival volunteers.
“The staff and I were joking about how smoothly the festival was going early last week,” said executive director Delynne Lorentzen. “Everything was going so smoothly until about Thursday afternoon, then we realized we were going to have to limit our audience.
“It really was the only hitch this year and I really think we pulled it off and did a good job.”
The festival had to cancel the Stars of the Festival showcase that was planned for Sunday evening, but Lorentzen says staff are just happy performers had a place to show off their work.
“The kids work so hard at this every year,” she said. “It’s just nice for us that they had a place to show off their hard work.
“We had such a strong year – it was an amazing Rose Bowl.”
The festival held a livestream of the event on Friday with a peak audience of around 200 people. The video can still be viewed on the Medicine Hat Rotary Music Festival Facebook page. It has been viewed more than 4,000 times.
“We had the livestream planned before we had to limit the audience,” said Lorentzen. “There’s always friends and family who can’t attend, so this made sense for us.
“After we had to close the doors to the public, it was really great to have.”
Lorentzen says festival staff and volunteers are proud of the performers.
“For a number of the students this was their first Rose Bowl,” she said. “I think this could have been a real disappointment for all of the performers, but they all rose to the occasion.
“They didn’t have teachers and they only had 16 people in the audience and the adjudicators – they did a really great job.”
Brothers Laec and Soren Lorentzen took top Rose Bowl honours, with Denis Kim named runner up.
