Dear Editor,
Being part of an appreciative audience at the opening session of the Guyana Music Festival, it was a source of great joy to see this activity being rekindled.
The fact that it was not a sell-out audience, I hope in no way discourages Chairman David Dewar and the festival committee. They deserve public commendation – glory be to these patriots who have revived what was once a popular and significant national event.
Caryle put is nicely, “Music is a kind of inarticulate unfathomable, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for a moment gaze into that.” Let us hope and pray that society with support from the ministry responsible puts in place a programme where music – not noise − is taught or practised in every educational institution across the state. Without this we run the risk of producing a generation who are no more than philistines, already evident in certain areas. After the need for food, shelter and to clothe ourselves, music is that great material necessity. Additionally, it is very spiritually uplifting.
As a prelude to another Music Festival, the Festival Committee, Ministries of Education and Culture, Youth and Sport, need to prepare booklets or videos to let our youngsters know more of those past great Guyanese musical icons, the likes of Francis Percival, Ivy Loncke, Lynette and Celeste Dolphin, PM de Weever, WAR (Billy) Pilgrim, Cecilie E. Burgon-Nobrega, Mrs Edith Pieters, George Noel, LR Kerry, RCG Potter, Valerie Rodway, MA Cossou, Peter Koulen, Shirley Garraway, Rev W Hawley Bryant and Horace Taitt, among others. If we fail to immortalize these patriots, we do ourselves and posterity an enormous injustice.
To the Guyana Music Festival Association and Guyana Music Teachers Association; Woodside Choirs International; Pastor Errol Insanally, President of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Guyana, the patron; the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr Frank Anthony, good luck and keep up this good work to help make Guyana a wholesome place we can all be proud of.
We must not forget them.
Yours faithfully,
Hamilton Green, JP
