Some of the young musicians and actors picked to represent Port Coquitlam's CDMF Performing Arts Festival at the provincials this month came home with hardware.
The Performing Arts BC event, held May 31 to June 4 in Fort St. John, saw Emily Hu take the runner-up spot in the Junior A Piano category while Joyce Xi earned an honourable mention in Junior B Piano.
Valerie Mok scored the runner-up position in Intermediate Piano and Markus Masaites was named the winner of Senior Piano (last year, at the Powell River fest, he scored the top prize for Intermediate Piano).
The Junior Classical Voice contest went to Lyrie Murad and Roshaan Saulnier reaped an honourable mention in Intermediate Classical Voice (she garnered the same honour in 2015).
As for Junior Vocal Variety, Sophia Strang clinched the number one award and Jerry Ma was named runner-up in the Junior Speech Arts category — the same placement as Darren Sayson, who competed in Intermediate Speech Arts. Sayson also won the Intermediate Shakespeare class.
Performing Arts BC is the provincial gathering for regional festival winners, between the ages of 10 and 28. Next year's fest is in Kamloops, May 28 to June 1.
The CDMF Performing Arts Festival was founded more than 60 years ago by Beryl MacLeod, then a Port Coquitlam music teacher, and over the years, thousands of competitors have performed at the fest — with a few going on to achieve international fame.
jwarren@tricitynews.com
