After two years of pandemic restrictions and uncertainty of what would be allowed, the president of the Southeastern Manitoba Festival is relieved that the 2022 season was such a huge success.

Sharon Guenther says, “it was such a relief that we could actually hold the festival once the restrictions started to loosen. I knew that we had planned well, so if they hadn't loosened, we could still have a festival. But they did (loosen) and we could still have a festival and we had a wonderful time.”

She says, “It was wonderful to see the students back performing. The adjudicators were excited. The teachers were happy. Parents were glad that their kids could do something like this again. And yeah, it was wonderful.”

er format next year, if possible. But this year worked out really well.”

Guenther says it was quite exciting that the 2022 SEMF also highlighted several Adjudicators with Steinbach connections.

“We had Jane Doerksen who took care of all our piano classes and with Choral and Musical Theatre we had Ed and Millie Hildebrandt. These folks are well known in our community and many know how much they have contributed to the musicality in our community.”

Guenther says this year's festival had about 420 entries with about 600 people involved, including the individual students in the choral entries.

With most of the performances taking place at the Steinbach Arts Centre, there were fewer volunteers required, however, Guenther says there were still around 30 that helped out over the four-week festival.

Looking ahead to next year, Guenther hopes they will be able to bring back the Dance portion of the festival. However, with so much uncertainty in the future and with nearly three years without dance, they’ll be taking a ‘wait-and-see' approach.

“We will see how many people will continue to volunteer for us during the festival, but also at the Board level. I think the key thing for a successful festival next year will be the people that step up and are willing to help put the festival together.”

The final words of the 2022 SEMF President, “It was a pleasure, and it was a wonderful experience.”