Walk by Edmonton’s Queen Elizabeth High School any Tuesday evening, and you’ll hear a band rehearsing — trumpets honking, flutes whistling, a triangle ringing. At the helm is Lindsey Kemp, weaving the sounds of the instruments together with her conductor’s baton.
It’s the Beer League Band and its members practice in the music room of the school where Kemp was a teacher for 10 years.
“It’s a place to come where you feel safe,” Kemp said. “It’s fun, it’s not competitive and we just make music together with no report cards.”
Kemp and fellow conductor Darwin Krips started the band two years ago when they both found themselves looking for a way to continue their passion for making music.
At the time, Kemp was on maternity leave after the birth of her son George. Then, when George was four months old, he went into heart failure and needed a transplant. Kemp and her husband Randall were at the Stollery Children’s Hospital with George for four months before he got a new heart.
In September of this year, George developed new health problems — antibodies that are a threat to his new heart and could cause his body to reject the organ. The family is currently at the hospital with George and Kemp is unsure when they’ll be able to go home.
“Right now my life is all transplants and medical issues and what his blood results are,” Kemp said.
An escape
Kemp stopped everything when her son began having health challenges, but she knew she needed to find a way to incorporate music into her life. That’s how the “beer league band idea” came to life, she said.
“Tuesdays mean a lot because it’s my one night a week that I can … be with people, making music and having fun. It’s kind of an escape from the stress of all the medical stuff that’s happened.”
Kemp was on maternity leave when her son George went into heart failure and needed a transplant at four months old. (Supplied by Lindsey Kemp )
Music has always been a big part of Kemp’s identity. For as long as she can remember, she was in piano lessons, in band at school, even getting a degree in education in saxophone. Kemp also hopes to get a master’s degree in conducting one day.
“The highlights of my life have been musical experiences,” she said.
Kemp passed that love for music to her students.
“My students were everything to me. Knowing I’m not sure when I’ll be back to them is really hard.”
Fortunately, many of her past students are part of the Beer League Band.
“It means a lot to know it made an impact on them and they wanted to come back.”
Victoria Nichols is one of Kemp’s former students now playing in the band.
Kemp was her band director for three years, and when Kemp started the Beer League Band, Nichols knew she wanted to be involved.
“It was definitely something I missed,” Nichols said. “It was a huge part of my identity throughout high school … and to come back to it was really comforting.”
Nichols said she’s never felt like she fit in anywhere.
Music has always been a big part of Kemp’s identity. (Emily Rendell-Watson)
“When I came to high school in Grade 10 and I fit in with the band community, we became a band family. And I relied on them, they were my best friends,” Nichols said.
More than just a teacher, Kemp was also a friend Nichols could talk to about anything, she said. That relationship has continued now that she’s part of the beer league band.
Those band connections are usually fostered during the beer part of the night, when the bandmates go out together to a local pub after practice.
It’s a chance for them to reminisce about old band memories.
We try to get better together.– Lindsey Kemp, conductor of the beer league band
Kristen Schiller joined the band last September after leaving her saxophone in its case for 15 years.
She’s a mom of four kids and band practice is her one night a week to get out and do something she loves.
“It was really intimidating to jump in after that long — pull out my saxophone with Cosmo Girl stickers on it from junior high and come here, but everyone was really kind and friendly,” Schiller said.
The band connections are usually fostered during the beer part of the night, when the bandmates go out together to a local pub after practice. (Emily Rendell-Watson/CBC)
That feeling of vulnerability is one Kemp said many new Beer League Band members experience.
“To come back and play something you haven’t … in 15 years takes a lot of courage,” said Kemp.
“We try to get better together.”
The Beer League Band plays its first concert of the year on Jan. 29 at the ATB Financial Arts Barns.
For details and tickets, click here.