Rotary’s Rose Bowl winner shines in a virtual event

By KELLEN TANIGUCHI on March 23, 2021.

ktaniguchi@medicinehatnews.com@@kellentaniguchi

The show must go on.

The 66th annual Rotary Music Festival wrapped up Sunday, and Josie Hoffarth, 17, was crowned the Rose Bowl champion for her piano performances.

“I was super excited when I found out,” said the Crescent Heights High School senior. “I was kind of shocked and overwhelmed. Just the experience of being in the Rose Bowl was incredible, and winning it made it more exciting.”

Hoffarth played Claire de Lune by Debussy and Rhapsody in G Minor by Brahms on the piano for the adjudicators who were watching live virtually. This was her second Rose Bowl appearance – she played in the 2019 festival.

Delynne Lorentzen, executive director of the festival, said the Rose Bowl and the Stars of the Festival Concert were live streamed on YouTube and Facebook for people to watch live – the rest of the festival was recorded beforehand.

The two live-stream events took place at the St. Barnabas Anglican Church, which already had live-stream equipment set up for services, Lorentzen added.

“It was definitely different having a limited audience with just the volunteers, but it was still very special,” said Hoffarth. “I appreciate that they live streamed it so people could watch, and I had supporters out there.”

Hoffarth is going to Medicine Hat College this fall and is taking a Bachelor of Arts program. She also says she plans to continue playing the piano.

Lorentzen says it was important for the festival to take place this year, even if it was all online.

“Kids that are in the arts are already kind of overlooked a lot of times,” she said. “Music takes a lot of effort and some of these kids practice two hours a day, they don’t go home and play video games, they practice piano or whatever instrument they are playing. They don’t have ball games every weekend, they don’t have places to perform, so the festival is like the one thing they have.”

Only five musicians performed in the Rose Bowl this year, including runner up Lucas Semrau and Denis Kim, who each performed in two disciplines.

Lorentzen says the festival usually has around 1,200 performers, including choirs, bands and orchestras. However, those larger groups had to be cancelled this year due to COVID-19 restrictions. She added there are usually around 230 solo performers, and this year that dropped to 156.

“I would call it a success,” said Lorentzen. “People really appreciated having the chance to make their music, and with everything being cancelled this year, so many things lost, I think it was important to go ahead with it and give them a space to do that.”

15
-14