EVER since the Ministry of Education made it compulsory for all schools to include music in their curriculum, the Amelia’s Ward Primary School Choir in the mining town of Linden has been slowly gaining recognition as a force to reckon with.For starters, the school has already racked up a cool $300,000 through competitions and gifts from having the young and vibrant choir of 30 serenade audiences all across Linden.
Just a few days ago, the choir, which comprises both male and female pupils from Grades Three to Six, was invited to perform at Banks DIH’s Annual Shareholders Meeting.
And, after lustily singing their little hearts out, proudly clad in their burgundy-and- yellow choir uniforms, they were gifted with $100, 000 by the company’s chairman, Mr. Clifford Reis.

HAIR-RAISING
Indeed, the young innocent voices that stuck to every note raised the hairs on the backs of everyone present, including Mr. Reis.
Music Teacher, Ms Jedidah Wilkinson, whose idea it was to form the ensemble, sat down with this publication and spoke of the successes and challenges the choir has had since it was formed three years ago.
Being a musician herself, Wilkinson, who was only a trainee teacher at the time, said it was not hard for her to establish a choir at the school after learning of a choir competition being hosted by a US-based non-governmental organisation (NGO).
“For the first time, they had this choir competition hosted by LIRA, and myself and two other colleagues just decided to give it a go. And we entered for the first time, and we won,” Wilkinson said.
Two years after, when she was done with teachers’ training college, Wilkinson recalled, she was permanently assigned to the choir. “When I came back,” she said, “I was coerced into being the music teacher; so I’m not attached to a class, but I teach all the classes music.
“And one of the stipulations was that the school must have a choir; so we went through the school, and we had auditions and almost every child auditioned, but we chose a bunch of 60 children.”
The competition, however, only allowed for 25 children, so the children had to be shortlisted. And this year, they participated again and won for the second time, carting off the first place prize of US$500.

CHALLENGES
Choir practice sessions are held almost every day at 11:30hrs, but according to Wilkinson, the children are so enthusiastic that they are there by 11:15hrs.
Since the school does not have a music room, due to space constraints, the practice sessions are currently being held in the school’s computer room.
“I am currently in the Computer Room, which has the size of a normal classroom; half of it is the computer area, and the other half is my area,” Wilkinson said, adding:
“And we don’t have enough space to put all 38 children. So the children would come and sit on the ground, but they would come and have a ball, because I made it very children-friendly.
“But because it is a computer room, it gets very hot in there, since there is no AC; but we are making do.”

ACHIEVEMENTS
Wilkinson expressed a little disappointment at the absence of a Folk Song competition for the schools’ choirs to participate in during the Mashramani season. In addition to rallying for this, the young music instructor said that she sees the choir not only competing, but singing for persons who are in unfortunate circumstances.
“I would like them to sing not only for special events, but if we can get to go to the old folk’s homes probably, and orphanages or the hospital… I would like them to have those experiences,” she said.
Since the establishment of the choir, Wilkinson said that she has noticed improvement in the children’s behaviour, both academically and socially, and concludes that involvement in extra-curricular activities indeed make children well rounded.