In February 2019, in those halcyon days before anyone had heard of COVID-19, I signed up to volunteer as a parent escort when my son’s school band went to compete at the Kiwanis Music Festival. It was fun getting to know the band teacher, meeting the strings teacher, and reconnecting with my son’s homeroom teacher. The other parent volunteers were all equally proud mothers of band members and we chatted about the music program, the schools our kids previously attended, and our own musical histories. In between we carried out our onerous parent volunteer duties, which consisted of helping to load/unload the buses, carrying instruments (first time I ever carried a xylophone or conga drum!), and admonishing the kids to stay off their phones while the competing bands played.

It was a moment of my life coming full circle. As a child, my great hobby was music – voice lessons, piano lessons twice a week and singing in two choirs. And February was Kiwanis Music Festival month in our house. The preparation and practicing went on for months, starting in October. Extra lessons and choir rehearsals were added in as the competition dates grew closer. Meeting up with duet and duo partners to put the finishing touches on our joint performances was essential. All the while, nerves were growing ever more fluttery and hard to control – the prospect of competing in front of a crowd was exciting and terrifying all at once.

When the performance schedule was finally published, my music teachers, my mother and I perused the pages of the program as closely as other people follow hockey scores or the stock market. Between my eight individual competitions and at least as many choral performances, there was always a high probability of conflicts between commitments. I recall my voice teacher being apoplectic at the fact that I was expected to sing a high A at nine o’clock in the morning – inhumane, impossible, shameful even, I recall his saying in disgust. Obviously the schedulers know nothing of the human voice! And once the realities of the schedule were finally accepted, thereafter ensued the choreography of fitting in meals, arranging car pooling, planning clothing changes from civvies to choral outfit and back, squeezing in one last practice with the accompanists (who were also following their own demonic schedules).

Because of my many performances over the span of a few days, I was permitted to take the whole week off school. This made me a minor celebrity at school – or at least in my own mind! This was the week when music was king and the jocks, for once, took a back seat. At the Festival, the usual suspects appeared – people I saw only once a year because they attended other schools but who were well known to me nonetheless because they were my competition, the people to beat, my annual nemeses.

If all of this wasn’t chaotic enough, add to the mix that my father was a Kiwanian. He too had his own schedule and commitments. His duties involved ushering, working as a platform marshal (meaning he called the name of the next competitor), driving the adjudicators to and from their hotels, and filling in when someone else got sick. Occasionally he would come home with juicy gossip about an adjudicator or a story about the meltdown of some local music teacher (fortunately never one of mine).

One year my father served as the President of the Kiwanis Music Festival Association and during that year’s festival especially he was everywhere at one and nowhere to be found when needed (at least by me or my mother). But there were also those serendipitous moments where he was working in the room where I was performing. It always felt extra special to hand my competition card to my father and have him give me an encouraging smile before I sat down at the piano to play. And if it wasn’t my father, it was often one of the members I knew from his Kiwanis Club. For that week, the Kiwanis Music Festival felt like home and the Kiwanians felt like extended family.

It was a lifetime ago when I last competed. I always did moderately well and came home with a small number of certificates for being among the top three in my classes. I was even fortunate enough to be awarded small cash scholarships the last three years I competed.

Despite my admittedly modest achievements, many of the young musicians I competed against were far more successful than I. Several (all women) completed their doctorates in music. Many went on to teach a new generation of students – privately, in school and at various universities. Others became choral and church musicians. Names I recall from my Music Festival days now feature among the members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company Chorus. Others have made solo careers as folk and jazz musicians. I realize now that I had the great privilege of being surrounded by incredibly talented musicians.

Since my last performance at the Music Festival, I have hung up my piano keys (although I continued singing in choirs for years after). However, going back to the Kiwanis Music Festival as a parent reminded me of those nerve-wracking days and brought back memories of my dedicated Kiwanian father. It also brought me a proud new mom moment – my son’s band won first place with a mark of 94 percent! They went on to the provincial band competition and eventually the Nationals for that year.

Time to pass the baton to the next generation…