Music festival’s 95th year also one of its biggest

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on March 30, 2025.

File photo by Ian Martens Students from the Ecole Agnes Davidson handbell ringing chorus take part in last year's Lethbridge and District Music & Speech Arts Festival. This year's festival kicks off on Monday

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The Lethbridge and District Music & Speech Arts Festival is celebrating its 95th anniversary this year with the most participants the festival has seen in a while.

With the festival starting on Monday, General Manager Jaimee Jarvie says they are excited to be able to celebrate such milestone with the community this year, and about the increase in enrolment as well.

“We have 14 different disciplines that will be running across the entire two weeks at our favourite venues,” says Jarvie. “Sterndale Bennett Theatre, Casa, The Owl Acoustic Lounge, St. Augustine’s Church, and Southminster United Church.”

More than 850 registrations were received this year, which is the biggest festival in a long time, so they are very excited about it.

To celebrate the milestone, Jarvie says they will have a merchandise table at the festival, where people can get things like hoodies, tote bags and other trinkets to celebrate the festival.

“We have a couple of 95th anniversary scholarships that we will be giving out this year as well to outstanding performances, that have been donated by community sponsors,” says Jarvie.

She adds that as always, they will have their two festival concerts at Southminster United Church. The musical theater showcase concert will take place on April 5, at 2 p.m. and the Stars of the festival showcase concert on April 12 at 2 p.m.

“We are excited about the growth, we have more disciplines we’ve had in decades and more registrants than we had in many years, so we are excited to see the continued growth and the support we have in this 95th year of the festival,” says Jarvie.

She says that because of the increase in registrations this year, they had to add two adjudicators to the list and another room at Casa to accommodate the extra performances.

Jarvie adds that the adjudicators are local to Alberta, but they do have one travelling from Saskatchewan this year.

“It’s busy! We have so many sessions running at the same time, I think every day we have something going on in almost every building.”

They have a schedule at a glance on their website, for people to know which disciplines are running where and when.

“You can also pick up your festival programs at Casa,” says Jarvie. “Those are $20 and that acts like an all-access pass, so you can come see any session or any concert just by showing that book at the door.”