Winooski Valley Festival Made Beautiful Music in Rochester
By Martha Slater

With 230 middle school singers and musicians, plus their families, teachers and other community members gathered last Wednesday evening, April 2, the Rochester School gym was pretty crowded. The occasion was the annual Winooski Valley Middle School Music Festival and it was the first time that anyone could remember that this annual event had taken place in Rochester.

Hosted by Rochester music teacher Carol Cronce, the chorus, orchestra and band students from all over central Vermont had been at the school all day, busy rehearsing with conductors Peg Mehuron (chorus), Harry Schenawolf (orchestra), and Larry Solt (band). The six Rochester students selected to participate were chorus members Mikailah Blair, Paige Crickard, and Jorah McKinley; and band members Gavin Curtis, Jordan Hubbard, and Danielle Mishkit.

The only sour note in the day happened when a tree fell across power lines a few miles north on Route 100 late in the afternoon, causing a power outage and also causing some headaches for the cafeteria staff preparing a spaghetti dinner for the festival participants.

"We have a gas stove and had already begun cooking when the power went out," recalled food service manager Elaine Roth. "The exhaust fans didn’t work, but the kids had to eat, so we just did the best we could. We served everything out of our cooking pans onto disposable trays, since we didn’t know when we’d be able to use the dishwasher. The power came on as we were still serving and fortunately we got the dishes done before the concert began. We were all very impressed with how polite the kids were."

The string ensemble led off the concert, shortly after 7 p.m. Halfway through the choral performance, the electrical power went off again, plunging the gym into darkness, but not appearing to fluster either the singers or their piano accompanist Tim Guiles. They didn’t miss a note and finished their number to wild applause.

Rochester Principal John Poljacik announced that CVPS had told him there might be another brief power outage while things were switched back over, and with the emergency lights out in the hallways providing some illumination, everyone took a short break. The outage was indeed brief, and the concert continued, with both the chorus and band receiving rousing ovations for their impressive performances.

There was more enthusiastic applause at the end of the evening, when Bear Irwin of the Vermont Music Educators Association presented Whitcomb music teacher Sarah Helman with the New Vermont Music Educator of the Year Award.

"I can’t say enough about how supportive the faculty and staff at our school were," said Cronce, who also expressed her appreciation for the parking and traffic control help from constables Tom Simpson and Mark Belisle. "It was really great to have all these people come into our community and see our school. For me, this experience really highlighted the importance of arts education in our public schools and it’s wonderful that Rochester supports that."

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