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By Shane Clausing

music awards

Local music students awarded internationally for compositions

Jul 29, 2020 | 5:00 AM

Two students from Music for Young Children in Grande Prairie were honoured last month for their creating some successful pieces of music.

Students Rachael Smith and Lucas Armstrong both had their piano music compositions submitted into the 33rd annual International Composition Festival.

Over 5,500 Music for Young Children students from around the world entered the contest, which had a main prize of a $250 gift card to a local music store.

Kids that entered the contest were between the ages of 3-9 and the compositions were judged from four different regions:

• Western Canada (BC, AB, SK, YT, NT, MB)
• Eastern Canada (ON, QC, NS, NB, PEI, NF)
• United States
• Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and South Korea).

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Once the compositions were submitted, a panel of eleven judges play the music on the piano multiple times and decide whose song would either place in each category or receive an honorable mention.

Some of the compositions had words, others had beautiful artwork, and some had short biographies of the composers attached.

Once the reviewing process was completed, the results came back and student Rachael Smith won first place in Western Canada and second place internationally in the Moonbeams 2 division for her song Little Butterfly.

Lucas Armstrong earned an honorable mention in the same division for his song Mystery.

With the awards handed out, Nancy Ocayo Roussel, also known as, Miss Nancy to her students, says she was excited for the kids when she saw that they were awarded.

“When I heard the composition that these two students played for me, I knew they were quite good, so I was excited to see them on the list.”

Miss Nancy says that a majority of the compositions created by her students was done by the student themselves with only a little bit of help.

“They worked on it for probably two or three months. If they needed some guidance, I would help them out. They would play it in class, and they’d do that for a few months until they (felt) their composition is ready, I look at it and make sure everything is correct and then we submit it in early March.”

Miss Nancy also mentioned that while most of the kids write the music themselves, the parents do play a big roll in getting the child ready to preform the music.

“If a parent isn’t musically inclined, they still catch on as much as the kids do. The classes are parent attended, so even if a parent doesn’t have a musical background, they kind of learn along with the kid. But they (the kid) did a majority of the work for sure.”

Miss Nancy says it was wonderful to see Armstrong and Smith get recognized for their hard work. She added that she looks forward to see what her students will accomplish in the following years.