95th edition of annual National Music Festivals begins at Dedan Kimathi University

Nyeri

Friday, August 11, 2023

KNA, By Wangari Mwangi

The 95th edition of the annual National Music Festivals began on Friday with pomp and funfair at the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology in Nyeri County.

This year’s festivals have attracted more than 130,000 students from public and private schools as well as Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) centres.

Students from colleges, technical training institutes, polytechnics and universities are also expected to showcase their talents during the annual event which is taking place under the theme Nurturing Talent for Innovation and Development.

According to the Kenya Music Festival National Executive Committee chairman, Prof Frederick Ngala, the event is the largest arts and cultural event in the academic calendar which is aimed at not only creating holistic learners in and out of the classroom environment but also providing an avenue for the participants to nurture their talents.

“The national festivals have been held unfailingly to the benefit of our artists. The festivals promote appreciation of our rich cultural heritage found in our communities,” said Prof Ngala.

The festivals have been held annually since the year 1928 with the exception of the year 2020 and 2021 when the event was suspended due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Prof Ngala noted that the country had witnessed exponential growth in the number of participants as well as competition categories for adjudication.

“We begin at the sub-county level then to the county, the regional and the national level. On average, we have engaged close to 3 million people this year from the sub-county level. The participation is overwhelming with representation of students from the different parts of the country where we even have pre-primary pupils from all the way to university,” he said.

The first ones to set the 12-day festival in motion were pupils from Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) and pre-primary schools. Under their own choice of western style singing games for pre-primary schools, Karatina DEB primary scooped position one after garnering 89 points. The second position was scooped by Carol Academy from the Rift Valley Region. St Pauls Education Centre from Nyanza and Holy Innocent Parochial Centre from Kakamega tied in the third position after scoring 86 points in their presentation.

Courtesy ; K. N. A