Adjudicators

The important educational requirement of the festival is fulfilled by the panel of adjudicators, and we are fortunate that outstanding musicians can be retained to assist the developing careers of promising young students. In the first years, the Trinity College of Music, London, was generous in making their Examiner on annual tour of our province available for the days of the festival. Subsequently we availed of the ‘Chain' of British adjudicators organized by the Federation of Canada Music Festivals,travelling coast to coast under its auspices. This arrangement worked well in providing quality adjudicators, but it limited their availability to a time which worked in with other festivals in Eastern Canada. With the rapid expansion in numbers of Canadian professional musicians, due itself in no small measure to the music festival movement, there is an abundance of skilled Canadian Adjudicators in all disciplines to provide variety, continuity and expertise for our performers. But we still occasionally see adjudicators from Britain, the United States and elsewhere appearing in our program. An encouraging development is the increasing frequency on our panels of adjudicators of Newfoundlanders, alumni of our St. John's Festival, securing places of respect as adjudicators in ours as well as other festivals in Newfoundland and beyond.

A footnote to the adjudicator story worthy of mentioning is the uncertainty, due to vagaries in Springtime weather and transportation technology, of the members of a panel arriving on time. Patience and ingenuity always came out on top however.