Eastern Townships School Board teachers and students are tuning their instruments and warming up their voices for the eighth annual ETSB United in Music festival, will which will take place this coming Monday, April 16 at Massey-Vanier High School at noon. This year’s theme is ‘Songs of Change,’ and will feature close to 400 students from 13 ETSB schools. “It’s about getting music out there and having fun,” said Sherbrooke Elementary School Music Specialist Tracey Rivette, founder and member of the festival’s organizing committee. “It’s not a competition,” she added, explaining that the festival is about bringing students and schools together to share a passion for music. This year’s concert will feature songs that have had a positive impact in the world. According to Rivette, the theme was inspired by the Musécole fundraising concert ‘Why we Sing’, held last fall at Centennial Theatre, which Rivette participated in with a choir of SES students. Interestingly, the Musécole show was inspired by last year’s ETSB United in Music show where Massey-Vanier student Ember Gendreau sang a powerful rendition of Sam Cooke’s Change is Gonna Come. Gendreau accepted Musécole’s invitation and performed that same song at the fall Why we Sing concert, which raised $1,800 to purchase instruments for ETSB schools. Since SES was the recipient of Musécole’s first fundraiser, Rivette and a group of her students also participated in the concert. One of the songs they performed was ‘Nobody Rules You,’ by Canadian singer songwriter Dany Michel. The ‘be who you want to be’ motto of the song resonated so much with Rivette and her choir that they decided to perform it again at the upcoming ETSB United in Music concert. Each of the participating schools will perform a song at the upcoming concert, followed by three group songs that all 400 students will sing and play together. The programme will include powerful songs like Blowin’ in the Wind by Bob Dylan, Let it Be by the Beatles and the traditional hymn Amazing Grace. See full story in the Tuesday, April 10th edition of The Record.
ETSB schools uniting to sing songs of change
