The Prairie Sounds Festival took place in Portage la Prairie in April, and a number of its participants won an award at the Provincial Music and Arts Festival. Prairie Sounds Festival secretary treasurer Carole Lupkowski outlines how it went.

"These were the winners from our local festival that were sponsored to go to the Provincial that won the awards here. And we've had a number of them, but I think about half of them won at the provincial festival. This is a really good showing this year."

Winners include Gareth Rice. "I won the intermediate Canadian composers for Manitoba composers. You needed to pick a Manitoba Composer based off of a Canadian composers in terms of the music. The song I picked was Gray Sky by Julianne Dyck. It feels pretty good to win."

Daria Hofer shares her award. "I won second place of poetry and prose for my story that I recited and my poem. It feels pretty awesome to win. The poem I recited was called Friend or Foe by Lillian Anthony."

Madison Bueckert says, "I got second place in the advanced double W.A. Mozart class. It's really good to win. I played in the Mozart class at my local festival, and I won that, and I got recommended for the Provincial."

Jessica Ramachandran had a first place finish. "I got first place in the Grades 4 to 6 public speaking. I had to write an impromptu speech and I had to say a public speech. My speech was about the earth. My impromptu speech was to persuade someone to buy a pet."

Tessa Lupkowski shares her award. "I won the second place for Grades 10 to 12 public speaking prepared speech. I spoke about 100 years of women voting in Manitoba. I've done the competition for the fourth year now. I have been fortunate to have been recommended to four provincial festivals and found that each one is a learning experience."

This year there were 31 member festivals participating in the 2016 Provincial Music and Arts Festival.  The festival covered the disciplines of vocal, piano, strings, classical guitar, woodwinds, brass, musical theatre, poetry, prose, and public speaking, and this was the first year that students in school grades 4-6 could be recommended to the provincial level.  The local Prairie Sounds Festival had six of their recommended participants take home awards this year.  Planning has already begun for the April 17-21, 2017 Prairie Sounds Festival.

Katie Blight placed first in Junior Manitoba Composers.  

Katie Blight did not know she won, and was informed later. Carole Lupkowski says it's usually only the 1st and 2nd place awards that are announced at the festivals, so the Manitoba Composers Scholarship was only posted on the website and Katie would have been notified later.  She adds Katie says it was a nice surprise for her.