A short but vital history…..In 1931, a small group of eager musicians decided to take their love of music to the next level by creating the Calgary Music Festival. The Festival began as a small competition but quickly grew so large that this small group of musicians approached the Kiwanis Clubs of Calgary and asked them to officially take ownership of the Festival, giving it the new title: The Calgary Kiwanis Festival. Since then, the Festival has become one of the greatest performing arts events in Calgary, and one of the largest amateur competitive festivals in North America. Just last year it was renamed the Calgary Performing Arts Festival.

This year ProArts@Noon Concert Series will be presenting two of this year’s Festival artists:

Yan Li began playing violin at age five and currently studies with William van der Sloot in the Advanced Performance Program at Mount Royal University Conservatory. Yan was a prizewinner at the Canadian Music Competition from 2010 to 2015. For many years, she has won awards and scholarships at the Calgary Performing Arts Festival and in 2015, took first prize for Senior Violin at the Alberta Music Festival.

Singer Allie Pompu has been performing in and around the community for many years now.  She was born and raised in Calgary and grew up attending as many theatre camps and classes as she could.  Allie has competed around the province with the Calgary Performing Arts Festival, Contemporary Showcase Calgary, NATS Songfest, and in 2015 she represented Calgary in the Provincial National class for Musical Theatre at the  Alberta Provincial Music Festival.  Allie is frequently involved with community theatre companies around the city, and recently completed a sold out run of The Paper Bag Princess: A Musical, a co-production with Storybook Theatre and Forte Musical Theatre Guild.  When not performing or singing, Allie spends her time as a part-time makeup artist and a full-time mom.  

Allie will be accompanied on piano by Ron Bennie.