You can no longer call brass their favourite colour.
The junior and senior Triton Music concert bands from Nantyr Shores Secondary School earned gold at the annual MusicFest Nationals competition in mid May. Juniors took the award at the B100 level, while their senior peers earned their mark in B300.
About 60 kids made the trek to Toronto for the competition. Each band played three songs and were required to stick to a tight set that included one Canadian composer.
For Grade 12 student Anna Durov, who has been playing piano since the age of "five or six," this band has been the perfect outlet.
“None of us were expecting to get roped into this crazy of a program,” said Durov, a flautist in senior who also plays bells for the junior squad. "That's what continues to push us. When we see where we were at in Grade 9 and where we are now, it gives us motivation to do more."
This is the continuation of an incredibly successful two-year run, which saw the bands perform at venues from Innisfil's Onion Fest to Orillia's Sunshine City Festival. This year alone, they've claimed 30 separate awards, including 18 golds and four "extra" honours.
“I don't have a formula for this,” music teacher Danny Vaz said. "And I don't think (the students) do. None of us have done anything like this before. We didn't plan — we just wanted to grow and learn as much as we could. We didn't think we'd be able to do this. But we just kept going; we forged a path. This is a special group. The dots just always end up connecting. They're my life."
Mr. Vaz has been running the school's music program for four years, coming aboard around the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when students were prohibited from gathering in-person. Since then, the program itself has grown from 22 kids to more than 160, and the concert bands now regularly compete at some of the most prestigious events in Canada.
Most of the students enter with almost no experience, but their drive, determination and enjoyment of each other pushes them to quickly learn and succeed.
"It was such a small group at first," Vaz said. "It was September 2022 when we finally got to start refining. Festival wise, this group (of seniors) has really only been playing together for a year and a half. It wasn't like, 'Oh, hey, here's a plan — we're going to eight-x our enrolment in music and start playing at festivals. We just love playing."
Last year, they became the first band in the school’s more than two-decade history to qualify for nationals.
“Not anyone can go; you have to get an invite,” Vaz said. “Both bands got invites from every single festival we did (this year), and we also got gold at every single festival.”
The goal, he says, is to broaden the appeal of Triton music within town and forge lasting relationships between the high school and local residents.
“There's not a whole lot of access,” Vaz said. "All of the other areas of Simcoe County, there's a long tradition of music being strongly intertwined. I live here. It seems like this is one pocket where it's not linked from the school into the community. Let's make us known. We're not a high school band, we're a community band."
Grade 12 student Ben Thompson will be graduating in a couple weeks. But he encourages any new students coming into Nantyr Shores to give music a shot.
“Nationals last year was a lot of pressure,” said Thompson, a clarinetist. “This year, I had already done it once and it’s my senior year. I just wanted to go at it and give ‘em what I got. It turned out pretty well.”
Grade 12 student Radwa Mohamed joined the band about a year ago, after she first started going to the music classroom to “goof around” with the piano. Her interest broadened from there and she travelled with the band on several trips, operating their camera.
“Seeing those first festivals and awards, it was really fun,” she said.
Mohamed eventually took up the trumpet, which hurt her lips in the beginning. But through lengthy practice at home and in the music classroom after school she began to excel and this year joined her peers to play at nationals.
“It was really cool,” she said as bandmates rehearsed a room over. “I just felt so much pride. This space is where you can be your full, unfiltered self.”
The broader community is, indeed, starting to take notice. The Community 4 Kids organization — formerly known as Christmas for Kids — recently provided a $500 donation to help offset costs.
And on June 8, the Fork and Plate Family Grill will host a barbecue fundraiser from 1 to 8 p.m. The event includes a live performance, a Triton menu on the patio, and full Fork and Plate offerings inside the restaurant.
“Our community can hear how absolutely amazing they are,” Fork and Plate owner Deb Burton said. “The arts in the high schools do not get very much funding. Everything they sell, they get. These kids have some talent. They have done some amazing things in a very short period. Mr. Vaz, he has those kids eating out of the palm of his hand. He has them so excited. The talent he’s cultivating is amazing.”
Burton attended the band’s holiday concert in December and was “blown away” with how well the students performed. It made her want to help them in any way she could.
Vaz called the level of community support the band has received over the last couple of years "really neat."
“The community has done what it can to help out; they've supported us in a huge way,” he said. "It's a factor in how we've made it work. We get so much of it. We try really hard to make sure everyone has access to all the opportunities."
For others, the program has given them an opportunity to meet new friends and use their musical skills, all while having fun.
“Triton Music shows young high-schoolers that music is not only sound but feeling, friendship and growth,” Grade 10 student Lauren Cowan, a euphonium player. “Last year was very meaningful to me because I got to feel confident in my musical abilities and the friendships I have created over my first year. This year was even more special to me because I have looked back to see not only my musical growth but the growth of the entire band.”
