News
A 12-year-old Moncton bassoonist is set to be the first recipient of a national scholarship.
Sarah Berube, a third-year Sistema NB student, will travel to Ottawa next month and accept the first-ever $1,000 scholarship to attend the weeklong Brooke Valley Bassoon Days music camp.
The youngest student set to attend the camp is a year younger than Sarah, while the oldest is 62 – one of a few advanced adult amateurs taking the opportunity to improve.
Sarah’s Sistema music teacher said her student has unique qualities that made her a candidate for the scholarship and the intensive, professional camp.
“She’s very smart. She works very hard. But she’s also extremely humble,” Kristin Day said.
“I wanted Sarah to have the camp experience because it shows young people what’s possible with their instrument. This will expose her to things I can’t provide. She’ll experience a lot more of the solo repertoire that’s available for bassoon – most of what she knows through Sistema is ensemble music.”
Not only will this be her first time travelling alone, it will also be Sarah’s first flight and her first time attending an overnight camp.
“I’m not really nervous – mostly excited,” she said. “I’ll be meeting bassoonists from all over the country and having master classes together. And we’ll be learning how to make reeds.”
A press release announcing the scholarship issued by Sistema NB explains reed-making is an integral part of the bassoonist life, and a good reed is essential to the sound.
But it’s an experience not readily available to young students and the instrument itself is an uncommon choice for many children, being physically large, and much more difficult to play than many other wind instruments.
The scholarship is named for the late Paul Buttemer, a Canadian known for his musical accomplishments as a bassoonist, and even more his technique for making reeds.
For Sarah’s mother, Charlene, the camp is one more amazing event arising from the family’s participation in Sistema NB. Her younger son, Corey plays viola and pays close attention to what’s happening to his older sister.
“I don’t see any other way they would ever have had these opportunities,” said Charlene. “Without Sistema NB, they would never have all this music or develop their talents.”
Sistema NB is a free daily after-school program that uses group learning of orchestral music as a means to create social change. Established in 2009, the program operates in Moncton, Saint John, Richibucto and Tobique First Nation and now engages more than 700 children in the province.
