Education Ministry hosts Annual Festival of Choirs

…aim to promote more singing in Guyana

The Education Ministry hosted its annual Festival of Choirs which saw the Bishops High School, South Ruimveldt Secondary School and Supply Primary School emerge as winners in their respective categories at the National Cultural Centre.
The competition saw the participation of several schools from five administrative regions and Georgetown.
The winning school in the Primary category sang “Song of Hope” while in the Secondary and solo categories, the schools performed “Let us Co-operate” and “My Guyana Eldorado” respectively.
Coming in at second position in the Primary Category was Mahaicony Primary while Berbice Secondary copped the second spot in the Secondary category and Novar Primary and St. Roses High scooped up the third position in their respective

categories.
Acting Administrator of the Unit of Allied Arts, Lorraine Barker-King explained that the aim of the festival is to be able to reach children from all 11 educational districts and also to expose them to music.
“Studies would have shown that children who are involved in music actively preform exceedingly well in their academic subjects because of the discipline and all the benefits that music attracts”.
Nevertheless Barker-King underscored that the Ministry is looking for a larger audience and more participations from schools across the nation as plans are afoot for the hosting of Choir festival 2019.
“Next year we will raise the bar, we will be taking it higher in terms of better music selection and so on that is why we are encouraging more schools to take part in this festival”.
Further she noted that the Ministry was already placing focus on the children’s Mashramani competition since like music, it plays an integral role in the social upbringing of children.
The competition involved a combined choir presentation, where students from primary and secondary schools in their region or district came together to form a choir.
Each choir was required to perform a national song and a song of its own choice.