New trophies and classes at Festival

The extremely popular celebration of culture will be held as usual in the superbly appointed Braid Arts Centre adjacent to the town hall. This year’s Festival will see some exciting changes, with new competitions in some of the disciplines. There will be one new class in Instrumental Music: a class for recorder P5 and under. There is also a new bursary: the Dorothea Seyfang Cup and Bursary (£50) for the best all-round local primary school instrumentalist. Speech and Drama are introducing prose classes for all ages. The Communication classes, which were introduced last year, continue with a new age structure. These are all non-competitive and anybody is free to enter. Meanwhile, the Vocal section has one new class: Key Stage 1 Choirs (primary 1 – 3). The first prize in this competition is the Dinsmore Trophy. All Choir classes are now own choice songs. There is also a new bursary in the Vocal section for boy’s solo (14 – 18 years): the Marlagh Lodge Bursary worth £50. In the Traditional Music section once again competitors are reminded that only on-line entries will be accepted. Otherwise the programme in this section is as before. Closing date for all entries is Friday 16th January 2015 2015 Festival dates:- Traditional Dance: Confined 6 & 7 February; Open 16 – 21 February. Traditional Music: Saturday 21 February Instrumental Music and Vocal: 23 February – 7 March Speech and Drama: 26 February – 7 March Modern Dance: 9 March – 13 March Information on all events is available at www.ballymenafestival.org.