Danielle Hamilton is this year’s recipient of the Sun Festival Mentor of the Arts Award.
Hamilton was presented with the honour on Monday afternoon as part of the Tsawwassen Sun Festival.
Hamilton is musical director at South Delta Secondary, where she’s worked since 2000.
As a mentor-teacher, she’s taught music, musical theatre, band, choir, orchestra and guitar to hundreds of kids over the years and provided them with a foundation and outlet that will last their entire lives.
Hamilton is a “much loved, local musical mentor,” said Sun Fest committee member Jennifer Bach.
Not only has Hamilton directed several school musicals, the band and choirs she leads have collected several gold medals at festivals over the years including recent wins in Whistler, Bach added.
While she teaches full-time, Hamilton also tries to practise what she preaches by singing with the Phoenix Chamber Choir in Vancouver.
“You can’t be a good teacher, or mentor if you don’t keep in it, yourself. You lose perspective,” she said.
Hamilton said it’s the second time she’s received the award, after winning in 2015 when she was director of the Delta Community Choir.
Those who nominated her this year, singled out her efforts to keep music alive when the pandemic hit in 2020.
With choirs one of the activities shut down, Hamilton found ways to keep kids singing, such as having them meet outdoors in groups of five, with the proper distance between them, then having them lip synch, so the video could be mixed with previous recordings.
She did 20 of those videos over two years and was musical director for the school’s Mamma Mia musical, for a remote audience, and in 2022 directed music for the Addams Family musical.
Kids have gone through a tough time with COVID-19, she added.
“I’ve literally had a kid graduate this year say, ‘Music saved me. If it wasn’t for music, I don’t think I’d be here,’” she said. “These kids need an outlet, something other than their telephone or their iPad.”
Hamilton has her own studio at home and is a classically trained pianist with a degree in jazz from UBC and likes classical music, but her favourites are jazz, gospel and blues.
Adele is one of her favourite artists, but she also likes Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the Broadway musical, Hamilton.
Hamilton points out that she’s distantly related to Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the U.S., after which the musical is named and with whom she shares a birth date.
“I’m so blessed, that all I do is teach music, all day long,” Hamilton said. “It’s a huge blessing to do what I love.”
