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Music brought together 450 students from Mennonite high schools across Canada April 25-26, but the students and teachers took home more than memories of concerts.
A choral concert at Centre in the Square, Kitchener's concert hall, and a band concert at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate were the highlights. The concerts, however, were only the culmination of many events at this year's Canadian Association of Mennonite Schools festival.
Nine schools participated. Most students came by bus, but the 23 students from Mennonite Educational Institute in Abbotsford, B.C. caught a "red-eye" flight, and squeezed in quick trips to Toronto and Niagara Falls before settling into a rigorous rehearsal schedule on Friday at Rockway, the host school.
The 74 students from Westgate Mennonite Collegiate in Winnipeg were on the road for more than a week. They visited churches and schools in Leamington, the Niagara area and the Waterloo region before coming to Rockway.
The simple lifestyle of an Old Order Mennonite family that used no electric power made a strong impression on Rosthern (Sask.) Junior College students. That visit contrasted sharply with a day spent serving in Toronto at Canada's largest food bank and a soup kitchen. At night, former street people led the Rosthern students on a tour among the prostitutes and homeless. "I will go home with extreme appreciation for what I have, my family, friends and school," said Nadine Eichendorf, an RJC student.
What else was a highlight? Mass choir conductor William Janzen, said students. Janzen, from Kitchener, "is a fine musician, eccentric, but with a great sense of humour," said Westgate's Victor Pankratz. Janzen led the mass choir through a demanding repertoire, ranging from J.S. Bach and Rachmaninoff to Duke Ellington and two compositions by Jeff Enns, a 1989 Rockway graduate with degrees in choir and organ.
Just under 900 people were welcomed to the Saturday evening choral concert by Kitchener mayor Carl Zehr, a Rockway alumnus. The concert featured the mass choir and eight individual choirs. About 200 people attended Sunday's band concert, featuring bands from three schools, Rockway's senior orchestra and a mass band conducted by Wayne J. Toews from the University of Saskatchewan. He also received praise from school conductors.
All the choirs shared their music with area churches on Sunday, some of them performing in three services. It was the first time Rockway hosted the festival, which has been held every four years since 1980.
Participants cited the connections made between students, conductors and administrators as among the most important aspects of the festival, which includes Mennonite Brethren and Conference of Mennonites in Canada schools. "It is one other venue in which Canadian Mennonites gain an identity and in which integration is modelled," said Fred Martin from Rockway. -- Ferne Burkhardt, Canadian Mennonite
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