I read with great satisfaction the account of Journey Middle Schools’ string and band students’ recent participation at the Nationals of Musicfest Canada in Surrey in May.
The coverage by Joanne Baines made for wonderful reading. These young people have done themselves and all of Sooke proud.
Lorna Bjorklund, a music teacher at the school has been working small miracles since her arrival there a few years ago. She would be the first to acknowledge the dedicated help of many members of the Sooke Philharmonic Orchestra, more specifically Anne McDougall, the Concertmaster, with help from Mary Clarke and Joanne Cowan and also Jen Fiorin, the music teacher at EMCS.
After a decade and more of dead silence, organized music making has returned to Sooke’s schools, beginning as it should with all 17 of the District of Sooke’s elementary schools now providing music as part of their curriculum. The District School Board and in particular Margot Swinburnson, one of Sooke’s elected members of the board, who for years has ardently pressed for more music in the schools, is to be warmly praised for this.
As well, we should be grateful to the parents of these music students, whose interest and dedication - and insistence - has played such an effective role in supporting this happy and vital situation.
Norman Nelson
Music Director
Sooke Philharmonic Orchestra