PHILOSOPHY
... to provide an opportunity for music and performing arts students to share their talents and skills with the community through performance and friendly competition, and to encourage them to continue to strive for excellence through learning from their peers and adjudicators.
HISTORY
The Pacific Northwest Music Festival has been a major annual event in Terrace for the last 54 years. It is a competitive festival affiliated with Music Fest Canada. The Festival society is a non-profit community based organization, and is non-political, non-sectarian, and non-religious. The society and festival are run entirely by volunteers. The PNMF is a registered Charitable Organization.
The 17 day festival is the largest annual event in the Terrace area, and the largest multi-disciplinary festival in British Columbia. The 2026 Festival is scheduled to run from April 9 to April 25, with the portal for entries opening December 1, 2025. We expect similar numbers as last year when we had 1148 entries. Our performing arts disciplines include Dance, Speech Arts, Piano, Vocal, Strings, Guitar, and, and Choral. As an entry such as a duet or trio, or a band, choir, dance group or elementary school choral speaking group is classed as a single entry but has multiple participants, last year’s 1148 entries actually translated to 2605 performers crossing the stage. Participants range in age from under five years to retirees, and encompass the entire surrounding area, including Smithers and Houston, Prince Rupert, Kitimat and the Nass Valley, a radius of over 400KM. In 2025 126 awards and Scholarships were presented to the competitors, the total value of the awards presented was over $12,600.
Although it is a competitive event, the main focus of the festival is as a learning and growth experience for the participants, rather than a formal competition. To assist in this, highly qualified subject matter specialists are brought in as adjudicators for each discipline. They critique and evaluate each individual performance and provide guidance on improvement, in addition to scoring for the competition side. To further downplay the competitive side of things, the actual mark awarded to a competitor is only made available to the adjudicator and the Awards committee, and is not disclosed to the competitor, teacher, or the public.
Master classes and workshops are also an integral part of the festival. Universally the Adjudicators comment on the high quality of the performances they see and hear. They also continue to comment on how they enjoyed their stay here, and how different our festival is in that we emphasize the learning, fellowship, and educational aspects of the festival rather than the competitive side. It speaks volumes that numerous adjudicators have approached us requesting a return visit. To give an idea of the community impact the festival has outside of the arts, for this year’s Festival we anticipate paying for 43 hotel nights and per diems for our adjudicators, and 10 round trip flights from Vancouver and other Canadian locations. Our non-negotiable expenses will include approximately $40,000 for the 10 adjudicators, which include their professional fees, airfares to and from the festival, hotel nights and per-diems. The next biggest cost will venue rental, this year an estimated $18,000, the majority of which will go to the School Board for use of the REM Lee Theatre, the remainder going to Knox United Church and the Pentecostal Assembly.
All performances are open to the public, and are generally well attended. Audience members include family members and friends, other performers, and the general public. The Scholarship and Gala evenings are usually sold out. No admission fees are charged except for the Scholarship and Gala evenings.