Hundreds of young musicians got their chance to shine last night at the Kiwanis Music Festival's annual Stars of the Festival concert.

"It's a real honour to perform," said artistic director Scott Clark. "It means that you've been recognized by adjudicators as being worthy to perform on this kind of stage."

The show featuring the best of the best of this year's Kiwanis Music Fesival completely sold out its venue at Centennial Hall.

Moments before the first notes rang out, the theatre was filled with the nervous excitement of hundreds of young performers attending to perform or receive their awards. In all, more than $30,000 in scholarships were given out.

"We've never performed for this many people before," said Joanna Wiebe, 13, just before going on stage with her two sisters, Nathalie, 8, and Danielle, The sisters brought home $500 in scholarships from the festival, but they don't come from a musical family, they said.

"Dad's a doctor and mom's a taxi driver," joked Danielle. "Because she drives us to all our lessons."

Primping each other's hair and clothes, the Wiebe girls took time to give advice to hypothetical fellow performers.

"Don't make mistakes. And don't think about your teachers that are out there -- because you invited them," they said, finishing each others' sentences.

One of the first performances of the night came from seven-year-old Kate Richert, a student at Sherwood Forest public school. A fourth-year veteran of the Kiwanis music scene, she started playing the violin because she wanted to be like her older brother.

"I saw him playing, and I was like, 'I want to do that,'" she said. So she did. She got her first violin at the age of two. Her hard work paid off last night as she recieved top honours in the junior strings competition.

Keeping things light, Andre Heywood, 20, a trophy winner in the vocal solo category, performed a fun rendition of She Loves Me, accompanied by Rebecca Lubos, 28. Heywood is a student in the faculties of music and biochemistry at Western.

"I always get a few laughs when I do this song," he said.