‘Creating the next country star’: Jess Moskaluke presents music grant to Saskatoon school

It wasn’t any regular school day for elementary students at École Canadienne-Française.

On Friday morning, Canadian country singer Jess Moskaluke performed her chart topping songs in the school’s gymnasium.

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“It’s such an important thing that we continue to educate and give kids the opportunity to learn and express themselves through music in school,” Moskaluke said.

Moskaluke, alongside MusiCounts, had a special announcement for the students: a $10,000 donation of new instruments for the school’s music program.

“The fact that these kids got all these new instruments today, we could be creating the next country star, or the next pop star,” Moskaluke said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The fact that these kids got all these new instruments today, we could be creating the next country star, or the next pop star," Moskaluke said.

MusiCounts Band Aid Program is a national music program, which provides schools with musical instruments and equipment.

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“Research right across the board has shown how incredibly important music is to children particularly at a younger age, when their brain is in the developmental phase,” MusiCounts director Kristy Fletcher said.

Over the past 20 years, the MusiCounts program has donated more than $10 million worth of musical instruments across Canada.

“It is very exciting because the ones we had last year were quite old and they probably didn’t work as good as these ones,” Grade 6 student Ella Denis said.

Moskaluke, from Langenberg, Sask., said music education had a great impact on her music career.

“I was fortunate that there were choirs I could join and I could sing in and we had a strong arts community. We did have a band program in my high school where I played the flute and I was just so fortunate that I had that opportunity and not everyone does,” Moskaluke said.

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Richard Dubé is the music teacher at École Canadienne-Française and said he’s pleased with the donation.

“I remember last year, there was trumpet players that would be playing and they’d play a note and have to pull the piston back out in order to get the next note,” Dubé said.