The Rosedale Valley String Orchestra and the Red Deer Youth and Community Orchestra are joining forces for a fundraising concert to benefit the Lacombe-based A Better World.
The event runs April 20 at St. Andrew’s United Church, starting at 7 p.m.
A free-will offering will be taken and a silent auction of art from the musicians will also be featured.
Guest conductor Matthew Whitfield of the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra will also direct both choirs when they perform as a single unit as the evening’s wrap-up performance.
Naomi Delafield, founder and director of the Rosedale Valley String Orchestra, said these fundraising concerts have stretched back to the beginning days of the orchestra, which was in the early 2000s.
The Red Deer Youth and Community Orchestra, which is under the direction of Heather Ensley, joined their efforts several years ago.
“Once a year, the orchestras come together, and pool their resources and energies to fundraise for a project that A Better World is working on,” said Delafield.
This year, funds will go to support the building of an early childhood development centre at Captain Comprehensive School in Kenya (in the Nyandarua district east of Nakuru).
According to A Better World, two ECD teachers were working in a separate classroom that has since been condemned due to poor original workmanship.
“A Better World aims to build a new block of two classrooms that will allow the ECD children to move back to the location set apart from primary classrooms, and free up the classroom for primary/JSS use. The project will also include a water harvesting system with one tank.”
Four new toilets will be installed for the students’ use as well.
“Our goal is to build four toilets equipped with drainable, stone septic tanks, ensuring a long-lasting hygienic environment for the ECD students,” said Carl Hahn, A Better World’s general manager.
The projects are certainly timely.
”It’s a strong and growing school with good leadership, but it just never seemed to make the priority list for school funding – as is the case with many of the rural schools where we work.
“The classrooms were packed with more than 60 students per class, and their ECD classroom was literally crumbling,” he added.
“We funded four classrooms there last year to alleviate some of the crowding. Concurrent with this ECD project, we’re also funding a shallow well to supply the school and surrounding community with water.”
For Delafield, the charity concerts fit right in with her vision for guiding young musicians as they embark on their musical journeys.
“Each year, the two orchestras also select a guest conductor to direct the last part of the concert which features music played by the two orchestras together,” she explained, referring to Whitfield.
Meanwhile, she said that much of the music to be featured this year is connected to the theme of space.
Kids tend to be particularly fascinated with all aspects of astronomy, so Delafield and Ensley have chosen many pieces that are either about space or are inspired by space.
Looking back, the Rosedale Strings was launched back in 2002.
The partnership with A Better World began the following year.
Delafield said that she and A Better World founder Eric Rajah share a vision for empowering the youth of today to know that, even though they are young, they are still very much capable of making a difference in the world.
As she noted, it’s also to build awareness among the youth here about places in the world where things like poverty, conflict, and hardship are daily realities.
“So it’s partly about helping the youth to understand how people in other parts of the world live, but also about helping them to know that they do have opportunities to make a difference and that they can have a huge impact in their world,” she said.
“What I have found is that if we train our youth now from the time they join our orchestra, many of them develop that extra understanding,” she said.
“It becomes a part of their life, and they become even more passionate about it, and they find ways to become more involved.”
Meanwhile, there couldn’t be a more fitting role for Delafield, who started her own musical journey when she was just three. And when she eventually realized that performing could really help people above and beyond its entertainment value, she gained a whole new sense of inspiration.
“Music is more powerful than we realize,” she said.
“It’s healing, and it can take you to a new place.”
For more about the charity concert, call Naomi Delafield at 403-782-1642.