Guyana’s longest surviving secular choir, The Woodside Choir, celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.
The origin of the choir as set out in various written and oral accounts, goes back to a February 1962 Bishops’ High School Old Girls Guild Tea Party during which the now deceased Chairperson of the National History and Arts Council announced the initiation of the British Guiana Music Festival. Simultaneously, she urged the Guild to give consideration to the creation of a Ladies’ Choir to participate in the Festival; hence the creation of the Bishops’ High School Old Girls Guild Choir.
In a recent interview with The Guyana Review, Magda Pollard, one of the longest-serving members of the choir reflects on its heyday, its success at the British Guiana Music Festival and its contribution to the popularization of music in Guyana.
Elise Agnes Arno, another long serving member of the choir,