After playing together for only four months, Squamish's own Jocelyn Trio is savouring the sweet taste of success after having won the semi-finals in the Kids Division of the Red Robinson Talent Showdown at The Fair at the PNE on Aug. 25, amongst hundreds of entries and 40 competitors in their category.
The Jocelyn Trio was then chosen along with only 13 other acts to advance to the finals and take a shot at snagging the $10,000 grand prize.
The group - Jocelyn Pettit (fiddle), Helena Neudorf (keyboards) and Cedric Borchert (drums) - is taking their victory in the semi-final seriously. This summer may have taken them to the PNE in Vancouver, but next school break they plan to conquer the world.
"I want to do a cross-Canada tour next summer," said the band's founder and namesake Jocelyn Pettit.
"We'll drive all the way to the East Coast playing wherever we stop. Then we could get on a plane and fly to Europe - we'll have a Gypsy caravan, we would play in Hungary, Italy what about Africa?" she asked as she turned to address her bandmates. "Do you guys want to go to Africa?"
It's a lot to think about accomplishing in two short months, especially when you consider that all the players are, at the moment, only 12 years old.
Seed money from the win at the talent show might help, but the $250 was fairly split up three ways and each member has their own ideas as to how they want to spend it. Borchert has firmly decided upon a new longboard, Pettit is hanging onto hers for an upcoming trip to study in Cape Breton with acclaimed fiddle master Stan Chapman who honed the skills of Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac, while Neudorf is unsure how she wants to employ her newly earned dollars - though admits the new Long & McQuade music store in North Vancouver has been calling her name.
August consisted of practices every other day leading up to the first appearance, but after getting the nod to move on to the semi-finals, the trio picked up their instruments every day and worked for "as long as we could concentrate," according to Neudorf, "probably about an hour-and-a-half on average."
The piece Pettit selected for the group is called Czardas, a lively and technically challenging Hungarian Gyspy dance tune by Italian composer Vittorio Monti. In the full spirit of the competition, the three dressed for the part and completely choreographed their 3-minute and 20-second version of the song. Approximately 30 friends and family from Squamish came out to cheer the group on, but that was only a drop in the bucket compared to the 1,500-plus turnout the semi-finals boasted.
"Even though the audience was huge it was still fun because we had friends there," said Pettit, adding her nerves had more to do with the three judges sitting before them. "But then we got a standing ovation at the end - the only one! That was fantastic."
