The Vernon Community Music School is ready for its fall classes, despite the actions of a few pesky woodpeckers. The East Hill heritage building has attracted the attention of woodpeckers over the past few years, doing damage to the house that was built in 1908. Heather Perkull, VCMS administrator, said the birds “have created quite a mess pecking in the beautiful pillars in the front of the building and then we have had critters moving into those holes and creating a home.
” To help with repairs, the school received grant money from the BC Arts Council and from Heritage BC. Perkull said the Heritage BC grant was for “the conservation of this building so that we can continue with music lessons and rehearsal space for music programs and for people just to enjoy this space. We feel very much like this is a community hub centre for arts, music and culture so we're just trying to preserve this building so we can continue doing what we love for generations to come.
” Natalie Kober teaches violin and a number of children's programs said the school offers classes for children and adults. “Our programming is for all ages,” Kober said, adding there are adult guitar classes, group choir lessons and other courses for the older set. “There is a whole bunch of different group programming, and we also have individual lessons as well,” Kober said.
The individual lessons are for violin, cello, viola, guitar, voice, flute, saxophone, trumpet, French horn and other instruments. F.