The following article was written for the 50th anniversary of the Woodside Choir in the year 2002.

Celebrating 50 years of “Singing for the Joy of Singing”

by Elsie Croal

 Guyana’s premier Mixed Voice Choir, the Woodside Choir, the oldest secular choir in the Caribbean region, has given a half century of service to Guyana. 

‘Woodside’ as it is generally known, started as the Bishops’ High School Old Girls’ Choir in 1952, initially to take part in the first Music Festival held in then British Guiana. The Choir was so successful, winning both their Class Trophy and the Championship Trophy in the Festival, that they continued to sing as a group, admitting men at a later date.  

Their motto “We sing for the joy of singing” was coined by a Music Festival Adjudicator who described the choir in those terms in his glowing report on their performance, which won them, as had become the norm, the Festival Championship Trophy. 

This choir has served Guyana well over the decades, at important national functions as well as overseas.  

Woodside’s renditions featured regularly in the programmes organised at the National Park in observance of Guyana’s Republic Day celebrations, and older folk would remember their  lively performances under the lighted Tree in Company Path each Christmas, and at concerts in the Town Hall and at other venues. 

Communities in our rural areas also benefited from their talent since they often appeared at concerts out of Georgetown, travelling as far as the Essequibo Coast.  In recognition of this sterling service to the community the Choir was awarded a National Honour, the Medal of Service in 1992  for service to the community in the field of music. 

During the seventies and eighties Bill Pilgrim, Conductor of Woodside and Director of Music at the Department of Culture, wrote and produced several musicals highlighting aspects of our culture and the choir performed in them all, together with  other notable local artistes such as Pauline Thomas and the Guyana Police Force Band and Choir. 

The Choir represented Guyana at the Grenada Expo in 1969, at the Suriname Trade Show  in 1971 , at the first Carifesta in Guyana in 1972, and at Carifesta in Cuba in 1979  

Woodside continued to serve the nation and observed its fortieth anniversary in 1992 by organising a very successful Commemorative Music Festival, which served to expose Guyana’s youth to the tradition of the musical art forms familiar to their parents’ generation – choral singing, vocal and piano solos, duets and trios, even steel band playing. 

In observance of their fiftieth anniversary, the choir, among its other activities, produced its first Compact Disc, a volume of Christmas music that includes well loved traditional favourites, and other songs that demonstrate the choir’s versatility.  These include their popular ‘ching ching a ling’ version of Jingle Bells and the controversial ‘Christmas Invasion’ which always seems to raise the ire of the Guyanese ‘ back home for Christmas’, at whom it takes humorous aim!  

The year long observance of this very significant achievement comes to an end with a special show at the National Cultural Centre on December 29^th , where Woodside will share the stage with the Marigolds, a children’s choir that has been associated with Woodside for several years, and Korokwa, the offshoot of Woodside specialising in folk music. 

The nation can take pride in the achievement of this committed group of Guyanese, who, through this sterling achievement, have demonstrated that Guyanese do have the capacity, willingness and dedication to persevere with goals in the face of adversity, emerging stronger and better for the experience. 

Congratulations Woodside!  On to the next fifty years of ‘Singing for the Joy of Singing”