50th Anniversary

The SCFPA is the longest running Festival on the Sunshine Coast and celebrates its 50th year in 2024!

There are so many stories and memories to share. Might you, or do you know someone who might, take on the role of gathering the stories and memories to record and share in preparation for the celebration of the 50th Anniversary? Email Sarah Lowis at .

HISTORY

Modelled on Vancouver’s Kiwanis Festival, the Sunshine Coast Music and Drama Festival was founded in 1973 to provide opportunities for Coast performers to receive guidance in our own community from experienced professional adjudicators who come here from all across Canada.

Aletta Gilker and Mary Brooke were founding members, along with Barbara Cattanach, Marla Chatham, George Cooper, Elizabeth Kennett, Betty and George McKee, Hilda and Stuart Mitton, Jean Reid and Margaret Webb.

As part of the preparation for the 50th Anniversary, and as a start to gathering the stories and memories, we asked Barbara Cattanach to share her memories and this is what she wrote (September 20, 2021):

“I attended the first festival as our eldest daughter, Heather, was entered in the piano section by her teacher Betty Allen – now Elizabeth Kennett. The festival was started by the local Kiwanis group headed by George Cooper. I knew Mr Cooper, as he was Vice Principal at Elphinstone when I was in high school. Of course, he immediately put me to work.

In the early days the festival included Music, Dance and Speech Arts. Eventually there were too few entries in Speech Arts to justify hiring an adjudicator. The Dance group became large enough for them to start a separate Dance Festival. The Kiwanis turned the festival over to a group of Music teachers and Elizabeth Kennett was president for a few years.

I was in charge of publicity and also was secretary to various adjudicators. Elizabeth decided that as a teacher with students participating in the festival, she shouldn’t be president so she asked me to take her place. We had a very dedicated group of volunteers on our committee. Our venues included community halls, Church halls, School Gyms, the Arts Centre and Raven Cry Theatre. During Festival week, I would open and close every session. I loved every minute of it. Both of our daughters participated for several years and in the mid-nineties when the first of our three musical grandchildren entered the festival, I decided to step aside so that I could enjoy their performances as a spectator. In 2005 I received a lovely certificate of merit signed by Sue Milne. Sue used to phone me now and then to “pick my brain”, as she said. Hard to believe it is almost fifty years.”

Barbara Cattanach