What is the Medicine Hat Rotary Music Festival?
Each year, we look forward to hearing the performances of all our participants! We welcome adjudicators, teachers, parents, and audience members each year, all of who play a very important role in furthering the love of music in our children.  We thank them for their dedication to encouraging the youth in our community to enjoy and participate in the arts. While this is a “competition”, it is also a “festival” and as such, is meant to be enjoyable, educational, and to promote a greater appreciation for music and the arts in the lives of those in our community, as well as “pacing each other on the road to excellence”. The Medicine Hat Rotary Music Festival has been the major community project for the Rotary Club of Medicine Hat since 1955.

The Medicine Hat Rotary Music Festival is a local festival for participants who live within 100 km of Medicine Hat, Alberta (with exceptions for rural communities falling within 50km of this boundary).  Local community festivals are the grassroots of a three-tiered music festival movement in Canada. The Medicine Hat Rotary Music Festival offers classes in:  Vocal / Piano / Brass / Woodwind / Orchestra / Guitar / Choral / Cello / Chamber / Orchestra / Speech / Choral Speech / Musical Theatre / Violin & Viola / Music Composition / Band (Workshop).The Festival runs over a 2-week period each March.

The Medicine Hat Rotary Club sponsors over one-third of the total budget of close to $100,000; and fund-raises for another third.  Awards and trophies are sponsored by private individuals and are self-sustaining. Held at the Medicine Hat College, the Festival is not under the auspices of the College - rather we rent space there for the duration of the 2-week Festival. The Festival engages highly qualified adjudicators and educators who offer feedback on each performance and select winners scholarship winners, and make recommendations for the Rose Bowl and to advance to the Provincial Festival. 

We would like to make special mention of our donors, who generously offer financial support so that we can run the Festival each year. Thank you to: