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Gallery: 2016 Nechako Valley Festival of the Arts: Strings

Nearly 20 performers participated in the strings and band edition of the Nechako Valley Festival of the Arts on March 11.


Nearly 20 performers participated in the strings and band edition of the Nechako Valley Festival of the Arts on March 11.

For adjudicator Simone Hug of Smithers, it’s an opportunity for “guest teaching” — where musicians can play and get help, she said.

“I’m here to encourage how they keep up their good work,” Hug said. “There’s a negative taste [in calling it adjudicating and] I don’t want to create negative feelings attached to music.”

Meeting Vanderhoof’s musicians for the first time, Hug was impressed by the extensive programme presented by the violinists and cellists, of this year’s arts festival — including three of the Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, she said.

For Hug, who have been playing the violin since she was seven years old, learning the instrument is at times secondary.

“It’s about becoming a fine human being, and the music encourages that,” she said. “Each performer is unique, and if they are shy, don’t make them introduce themselves, but let them play.

“The way they are is perfect, and the fact that they play is perfect.”

At the end of a full-day of adjudication, Hug improvised violin accompaniment with guitarist Colin Walker, the last performer of the arts festival’s strings section.

Joining the event for the first time, Walker, originally from Ireland, presented two original compositions titled The lake and I Came Home.