Holy Trinity Academy wins three awards at provincial band festival
Wind ensemble and symphonic band brought home Superior Band and Adjudicator's Choice awards in Red Deer.
Holy Trinity Academy's wind ensemble and symphonic band returned from the Alberta Band Association's Provincial Festival of Bands in Red Deer with three major awards — marking the second time in three years the school has earned top honours.
The wind ensemble performed Claude T. Smith's "Emperata Overture," Samuel R. Hazo's "Mountain Thyme," and Vaughan Williams' "Sea Songs." By the second piece, band teacher Brianne Coventry knew they were going to excel. "I knew that they were going to do really well. I didn't necessarily think we would get the award because it's just such a hard thing to achieve," she said. "But in that moment, I told the kids afterwards, I knew that they had just really knocked it out of the park."
Their performance brought home both the Superior Band Award and the Adjudicator's Choice Award — an honour given to only four bands out of approximately 150 that competed over the two-week festival.
The symphonic band also claimed the Superior Band Award after performing Frank Ticheli's "Joy Revisited," Johann Sebastian Bach's "Prelude and Fugue in Bb Major," and Pierre LaPlante's "American Riversongs." Students screamed on the bus when Coventry told them the results.
Coventry said her goal is to maintain the standard. "Our goal is always to kind of maintain the reputation that we have as an excellent program in Alberta. This has gone on well before my time at HTA," she said. Holy Trinity's band program is widely known for being strong across the province, and Coventry said the team works each year to keep the bar high.