FAQ

Our festival has many classes, instruments and categories in the festival. For the full list of classes, check the AMFA syllabus found under the 2024 Festival Information tab. A general list of disciplines we offer are: Voice Musical Theatre Choir Band Brass/Percussion/Woodwinds Piano Strings Guitar (offered in 2024 if enough registrations are received) Speech Arts (offered in 2024 if enough registrations are received)

Any amateur student (or groups) of music or speech, of any age! We have classes for all categories and ages. See the AMFA syllabus (syllabus page above) for a list of all categories, age groups and classes. Please consult the syllabus for information regarding each specific class, as they all have different criteria and requirements. Reach out to the executive director if you have questions about what class to enter! If you're over 18, you can still register! Just be sure to register for the correct age category.

Solo, duet and small ensemble classes cost between $30 and $45. Concert and recital classes cost between $50 and $60. These fees range due to the level of pieces and range of time needed for the adjudicator to work with students. Large ensemble classes (choral and band) are higher fees. Reach out to the Festival Director to inquire about these costs.

All levels of ability are welcome and celebrated at our festival! Whether you are a 38 year old beginner or a 5 year old protégé, we have a place for you! Keep in mind, however, that you should have a very well-rehearsed piece prepared, as our adjudicators want to be able to give you the best feedback based on your actual level of ability.

All of your students can participate in our festival! Your primary role as a teacher (besides coaching them in their music!) is to help them figure out what classes to register for. Some students don't even know about the festival until their teacher tells them about the opportunity, which is why we really rely on teachers to help promote the festival among their own students!!

Besides having a concrete reason to work towards a personal goal, participants can also benefit from the professional adjudication and feedback provided in each session. We pride ourselves in being a 'teaching' festival where students get direct interaction with the adjudicators and often the chance to workshop their pieces with them. Some students may also be selected for our Festival Showcase (see above) and/or to represent the Foothills at the Provincial level. We also award a variety of awards, certificates and scholarships to students in a variety of categories, such as "Most Promising" and "Excellence in...".

Registration will be open between January 1 and January 31. Late registration (for an extra $25 per class) will be available until February 7.

We accept late registrations between February 1 and February 7. Due to the extra administrative work required, we charge $25 per class to register after the January 31st deadline. We cannot accept any registrations after February 7.

When it's time to register (annually from January 1st to 31st) please visit our HLMF MusicFestivalSuite.com registration site and create your profile. Each registrant, their teacher (and for registrants under 18 years of age, their parents) must create their own profile. You can then create as many registrations as you would like from within your profile. In order to register, a teacher must create their profile first, in order to give parents their ENT ID#. Once this is done, parents must create a profile for themselves, generating their own parent ENT ID#. Then a student profile can be made, linking the student profile to both the parent and the teacher ENT ID#. This allows for either the teacher or the parent to register the student, and allows for the teacher to assign payment to the parent if necessary. See the following FAQ for difference between a profile and a registration. Contact our executive director for extra help, or visit www.musicfestivalsuite.com to access all kinds of information to help you create your profile and register in the festival.

A PROFILE is a user account (login) that belongs to an individual. This contains basic information such as name, address, teacher, etc. A profile is only created ONCE for an individual, and is used repeatedly to log in to for the following years of participation. REGISTRATION is an annual sign-up for particular classes. This contains specific information about what class(es) a student is registering for, along with piece titles, composers and lengths. Registration is done every year between January 1st and 31st. Participants, their parents or their teachers must log in to their PROFILE in order to REGISTER. Which means that a profile must be set up (for all stakeholders: teacher, parent and student) before registration can happen.

You will not be able to make the changes yourself once registration deadline has closed (but up until that point you can). If you must make a change after deadline, you will have to contact our tech support at help@highwoodmusicfestival.com . We can easily make simple changes, such as piece length update, etc. If the change necessitates an entire class change (whether due to a mistaken registration or a changed mind), it may not be possible. We will try to accommodate if possible, but please note that this is not always possible and that a refund cannot be given. It is up to the registrant or teacher to ensure that the registration is done correctly before deadline.

This will require discussion with your teacher. Your teacher will best know how to categorize the piece(s) you are playing for the festival. Please make sure you consult the Alberta Music Festival Association Syllabus with your teacher to ensure that you and your piece meet the criteria for that particular class. Please be mindful that it is VERY important that your register for the correct class(es), as a wrong registration can result in a cancelled registration with no refund. We are not responsible for registrations for the wrong class, and we cannot consult on which class to take as we are not necessarily familiar with your category, instrument or piece as your teacher would be. Reach out to our executive director at any time if you have questions about which category to register in.

Some teachers prefer to register their students themselves, others just tell the parents exactly what to do. If you want to register your own students to ensure they are registering for the right classes and registering on time, you as a teacher can assign payment to parents so that you are not stuck with the registration bill! Whether you are registering your own students for their classes yourself or not, this is the general order of operations for any registration: ​ 1. You the teacher FIRST need to create a profile if you don't have one already. 2. Give the parents your profile # (ENT______) 3. Then get the parents to create their own parent profile if they don't have one already. This will generate their parent profile #. 4. Then parents create their own kids' profile. This will generate the student profile #. It is in this profile that your students will be linked to your profile # so that you can assign payment if needed. 5. Once teacher, parent and child all have a profile (which does not need to be re-done every year, a profile follows year to year), a student can be registered for their class(es) either by the parent or by the teacher, via any profile. ​ Important Note: if you are a teacher of an ensemble, you do not need to register each student in your band/choir/orchestra. Just create a profile in the name of the group, with yourself as the teacher. When creating a profile for your group , just proceed as though the group is the "entrant" - there will be a prompt along the way to indicate it is a group. Contact our executive director if you need help with this process.

The Festival schedule is quite complex and is determined based on many moving parts. The basis for the schedule is the "Tentative General Schedule" which is typically released here on our 'schedule' page by December 1. This general schedule outlines which categories are on which days, so that participants and teachers can know ahead of time which day(s) they may be playing. The fine tuning of the final schedule does not happen until after late registration closes after the first week of February, and takes a couple of weeks to finalize, as we have hundreds of entries with hundreds of performers to schedule! When the finalized schedule is released, it will be posted on this website the 'schedule' page. This will be posted by March 1 at the latest. We hope to have the schedule finalized earlier than March 1, and if we are able to do so, you will receive an email from the festival administrator that the schedule is available to view. So, to sum it up: January 1: General (TENTATIVE) schedule of disciplines and days March 1: Full and final schedule released

Due to the complex nature of scheduling such a large event, we cannot accommodate schedule changes or requests. Please be aware that if the tentative general schedule states that - for example - March 3rd and 4th are the dates for your category (ie: Strings), you must be prepared to be scheduled at any time on those dates. The only exceptions for accepting scheduling requests are for school groups (choral etc) and for musicians requiring specialized accompaniment - in these cases, forward notice is required (prior to registration deadline) or else we may not be able to accommodate. At no time is a refund given for scheduling conflicts.

Because our festival is able to run due to the generous sponsorship of local citizens, businesses and organizations, we want to keep that investment in the Foothills. As such, only those participants who reside or whose teacher resides within our boundaries are eligible for scholarships, awards or provincial recommendation. See the boundary descriptions under the 'about' page.

We allow performers to use their music and still receive a mark and written and verbal adjudication, however the use of music will disqualify you from being eligible for awards (scholarships, adjudicator's showcase or provincial recommendation). Please be mindful that if you play to play from memory you will need two copies of the original music--one for you and one for the adjudicator to use.

Bring your instrument (if different than piano), an original copy of your music for the adjudicator to use (bring two original copies if you're not performing from memory) and anything you need to feel comfortable (bottle of water, etc.).

Due to multiple sessions happening in our venue and the large amount of performers, participants will NOT have access to a warm-up room this year.

COMING SOON