Adam Bowen

Multimedia Journalist

Brentwood Elementary School was thrilled to have both their junior and senior choirs perform in the Alberta Music Festival's Provincial Choral Finals in May, where both programs had fantastic showings.

Though this is becoming a recurring event for the Senior Choir at Brentwood, Brentwood Principal Laurie Huntley is thrilled to see her students acknowledged for their

hard work.

"I love to see the efforts of the kids get recognized," said Huntley. "They put in a lot of hard work, volunteer time at noon-hour to practice and I like to see them get recognized as well as their teachers and their music teacher who put in a lot of extra time to prepare them so well."

Huntley believes that along with the recognition, the opportunities provided by the program are important for the choir.

"I think it's important that the program is recognized at this level but equally important is the fact that kids have performance opportunities," said Huntley. "The choir participated in the provincial festival as representatives from the Drumheller festival and the whole experience was rewarding."

The senior choir went up to Edmonton to compete and though they didn't win any awards, Huntley believes the kids walked away with something much more rewarding.

"The kids did really well, though they didn't come in first or second they really had a blast," said Huntley. "The whole experience is the reward, it's pretty special to jump on a Greyhound and get to go to Edmonton for the kids and they had an awesome day."

Though placing in the provincials is a fairly regular occurrence for the choirs of Brentwood, the significance is not lost on Huntley.

"We're lucky, it's a fairly regular occurrence for us for our choir to go to provincials," said Huntley. "Usually it's our senior choir but this year our junior choir did an audio tape to participate in the Audio Recorded Choral Festival so they don't have to travel."

The event was held at McDougall United Church and though the Brentwood choir didn't win they event they did have an outstanding performance and received a mark of 90 with a superior rating, providing an excellent end to a fun-filled weekend.