Charlottetown high school's rock concert puts musical talent and Canadian pride on display
CBC
Students at Charlottetown Rural High School are preparing to take the stage at the P.E.I. Brewing Company on Friday for their School of Rock 2025 Showcase.
This year's theme — "Elbows Up!" — will pay tribute to Canadian musicians, with students performing songs by artists like Alanis Morissette, Bryan Adams and Serena Ryder.
"We're all different grades from 10 to 12. It's pretty fantastic that we can all work together," said Livia Harris, a Grade 10 student and singer.
"It's really showing that Canadians — we're our own people, we're our own country…. We're not American."
The showcase is part of a special music class taught at the high school that brings together students from different grades to play and perform all styles of music, with a focus on contemporary songs.
The course focuses on popular music and performance — two things that appealed to Abby Krauss, a Grade 10 student who plays the keyboard, acoustic and electric guitar, and sings.
"It's my favourite thing in the whole world," Krauss said. "I get to play music every single day for like almost two hours just with my best friends and just rock out. It's awesome."
Krauss said the weeks leading up to the showcase performance have been a "rush."
"I've seen so many people get so much better at their instruments," she said.
When it came time to decide on a theme, Krauss said she liked the idea of a Canadian-inspired showcase.
"I'm very politically involved because I took a civics class and it was really, really interesting to me," she said. "Getting to explore that and then play music that relates to what I'm thinking is a big thing for me."
When Emmett Pollard first heard about the "Elbows Up!" theme, he knew what he wanted to play.
"First thing's first, please let me play Bryan Adams, which we did get to do," said Pollard, a Grade 11 student who plays guitar and drums.
Pollard said the theme is awesome given that Canada produces some of the best rock music in the world.
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