IRVINE, AB — The halls of Irvine School are alive with the sound of music once again.
Students in grades 6 to 9 have formed a school band, conducted by Mark Ward, a music instructor at Medicine Hat College.
“You come into class, and the teacher gives you a noisemaker, so it’s really exciting I think,” Ward said prior to class on Thursday.
The band includes 18 students, who play trumpet, trombone, saxophone, flute and clarinet. While some of the students have music experience, many of the students are picking up an instrument for the first time.
Ward can remember the sounds he heard when the students tried the instruments out for the first time.
“The sounds are not always harmonic and beautiful at the beginning, but very exciting, and very quickly we start playing -you know- songs and turn it into music,” he said.
Since the program resumed last month, the focus at band practice is on the basics; reading music, learning the notes and getting proper tone out of their instruments.
Claire O’Connell, a Grade 9 student who also plays violin, picked up the flute for the first time this year.
With the encouragement of Ward and her fellow band mates, she says playing has started to come easier.
“Yeah, (there’s) definitely a big one,” she said when asked if she had noticed an improvement in her skills on the flute.
“I’ve just, like, been able to play more, better and faster notes.”
Irvine School had a band program until four years ago, when their instructor was transferred to another school. School principal Carol Carlson says it can be difficult to find instructors to teach some programs in the Prairie Rose School Division.
“We find that in rural schools, particularly in some of our more remote areas in Prairie Rose, if they’re looking for a specialty teacher, that can be a challenge, especially if it’s not a full day type of specialty program offering,” she said.
Discussions between Prairie Rose and Medicine Hat College began last year, and resulted in Ward coming on board to teach the program, and the band getting back together. Instruments did not have to be purchased either, as Irvine School had a room filled with instruments in good playing condition ready to go.
Carlson says she’s happy to see her students passionate about the program.
“It won’t be long before they start to actually put together something that I think will be worthy of performance,” she said.
The short-term goal of the program is to have the Irvine School band perform at Kaleidoscope of the Arts, Prairie Rose’s showcase of music and art, held at the Esplanade in June. Ward said the performance would also be a collaboration with Seven Persons School.
Long-term, however, Ward is hoping students will develop a life-long love of music.
“Music is something they can do for the rest of their lives,” he said. “I play in the community band in Medicine Hat, and they have players from late teens all the way up to 80-year-olds. I hope some of these students will continue on and do that.”
