In memory of Vanessa Yasintha Wambura (August 2003 – August 2023).

May 8th was a day like no other day! It was a very fun and entertaining day. Now, I am not a huge fan of ear-blasting, annoying music being blasted in my eardrums and making me half deaf. Nor am I a fan of being trapped in a big yellow bus with around 50 students singing at the top of their lungs for over 30 minutes of commute. Friday I was trapped with both. But surprisingly I had a great day experiencing both during our school trip.

On Friday May 8th my grade visited the Toronto Centre for the Arts (TCA) in Toronto. TCA is one of the fanciest arts and entertainment facility located in the heart of Metropolitan Toronto. The day was one of the best days of my life! As the day began, prior to our trip we had English class, in English we did a quick survey for the upcoming track and field, and then had our snack and lunch time. When the moment arrived, we boarded the buses; there were only two buses and 5 grade 6 classes, with about 22 students each. So about 50 students shared a bus and it was all wonderful! My regular teacher Mme Ladouceur-Jones lives in Toronto so she took the subway to the Centre. The bus ride took about 45 minutes but it wasn’t bad. I sat with my best friend Julia and we talked and played hand games and we sang popular songs to pass time.

When we finally arrived we got off the bus and met my teacher who was already there ahead of time. We walked into the performing theatre, it was big, beautiful and wide, with seats on a balcony and seats below them, the stage was big and accommodated many artists to show their talented stuff. We grabbed two seats in the second row towards the side of the theatre. We waited only a few minutes before the young musicians walked onstage with many instruments such as trumpets, cornets, baritones, clarinets, flutes, guitars, saxophones, bassoon, piccolos, bass clarinets, chimes, cymbals, etc. Lucky for me I was facing the trombones which was my instrument at school. The orchestra practiced before the conductor came out, a short Jamaican man that was really nice and funny named Colin Clarke, he led the orchestra through many songs such as Cartoon a really fun song composed by a man who loved Saturday morning cartoons. In the song it sounded like Tom and Jerry music. The orchestra did many other pieces before one of my favorite parts of the day came on…

Cadence! Cadence is an acapella group of four older men that do really funny and great songs. A few songs that they played were: Happy, Shake it Off, Baby by Justin Bieber, Hazel Eyes, and a few other songs. They were hilarious and definitely a crowd fav. The Grand Finale was a song sung with the orchestra called Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. It was really incredible!

In the end, we boarded back onto the buses on our way back to school which was again a long fun ride. At school, as we arrived we had one period of math then played outside for the rest of the day. This was a great day and opened up my eyes to music. No wonder why I enjoy my music class though I thought I like listening to music better than playing it!

What is your music instrument at school?

Vanessa Wambura.