The Morden Festival of the Arts held it's first meeting on May 29, 1975.  Morden had participated in the Southern Manitoba Music and Speech Arts Festival Association since 1944. 

 

In 1975, however, this organization disbanded for several reasons: 

• The festival had become so large that is was unwieldy to organize.

• Individual towns that had participated felt there was enough interest in each community to warrant their own community festival.

• Locally, teacher involvement had declined because they felt that competition pressure between communities was becoming detrimental to some students.

 

Mrs. Anne Winter headed the first Morden Festival Committee by chairing an open meeting at Morden Elementary School, which 40 interested people attended.  Various ideas about the type of festival wanted were discussed and a committee was formed. 

 

It was decided to have a more non-competitive festival, without trophies being awarded and marks being announced.  An adjudication and participation certificate for all participants, with a gold seal for exceptional performance, scholarships for overall excellence in two or more entries, and silver medallions for a designated number in the different disciplines was to be the format.

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Mrs. Sally Chubey of Morden, Past-President of the Southern Manitoba Music and Speech Arts Festival, continued on the new executive. 

Others on the committee included:

Irene Milgrom, Vice-President and publicity chairperson

Els Temmerman, Secretary

Mary Poetker, Treasurer

Jeanette Zimmer, Awards Chairperson

Dr. Ernie Pauls, Finances

Cathy Rempel, Syllabus

Grace Proven, Program

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As there was no provincial syllabus at this time, there was an extensive selection committee which included Ella Martens, Neil Hoeppner, Dick Myers, Marjorie Sawatsky, Erna Bergmann, Merle Andrew, Cheryl Skubovious, Betty Bond, Clara Penner, Peter Wand, Linda Neufeld, and Saralynn Olson.  

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Classes at the first festival included Piano, Organ, Vocal, Speech Arts, Brass and Woodwind, Oral Spelling, Story Telling, Creative Dramatics, and Debating.  

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Through the years:

• 1976-77, gift certificates replaced the silver medallions, and accordian classes were added.

• 1977-78, letter grades replaced the gold seal and the gift certificates were dropped.  A successful Church Choir Night was held.  Accordian classes did not appear.

• 1978-79, gold seals were reintroduced due to a difficulty in getting differentiation using the letter system alone.

• 1981-82, French Speech Arts was added.

• 1982-83, Visual Arts was added.  Organ classes were dropped.

• 1984-85, Special events were Senior Paino Nights with cake and coffee celebrating the Bach-Handel Tri-centenary and a piano accompaniment workshop.

• 1986-87, Sessions included Piano, Visual Arts, Band, French and English Speech Arts, Vocal, Spelling, and the addition of Strings.  Visual Arts quickly became a major part of the festival.  Five years earlier, there was question whether the vocal part could be retained and now this was a very strong discipline.

• 1992-93, Spelling, which had long been an area of controversy, was dropped.

• 1993-94, The French portion of Speech Arts was traditionally poorly attended, but in 1994 a whole class from the French Immersion program entered individually, making a half session of French.  With the French Immersion Program expanding yearly, it was important to retain a bilingual Speech Arts adjudicator.

• 2004-05, The Morden Festival of the Arts celebrated it's 30th Anniversary, and invited people who started their careers here to return as adjudicators.

• 2007-08, Participants had the opportunity to participate in the Cultural Capitals Canada Chitauqua Spirit events.  Students attended composers' workshops as well as adjudicators' workshops in Piano, Speech Arts, Strings, and Vocal.  Sacred Music sessions were added to the festival.

• 2008-09 & 2010, High School Visual Arts sessions ran concurrently with the High School Art Show at Morden Collegiate Institute.

• 2019-20, Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, festival sessions were cancelled one week prior to the start of Strings, which was to be the first discipline taking place in March of 2020.

• 2020-21, The Covid-19 Pandemic continued and Festival was cancelled.

• 2022, Covid restrictions eased and we were able to hold a Festival once again.  Speech Arts was not held, due to the workload caused by Covid restrictions for the school teachers in our community.

• 2023, The Morden Festival of the Arts held a full Festival this year, which included the disciplines of Strings, Piano, Vocal/Choral, French and English Speech Arts, and Band.

• 2024, A new AMAF Provincial Syllabus was introduced. 

• 2025, The Morden Festival of the Arts celebrates it's 50th Anniversary!

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