What is Edith Peters contribution to music in Guyana?

Answer 1

Edith Pieters

Edith Victorine Pieters, AA, former Music Co-ordinator of the Music Education Programme at the Ministry of Education, died on July 16, aged 84.

Few persons anywhere would ever have heard of the Lads and Lassies Club of New Amster-dam. But it was from amidst this motley and obscure assemblage that Edith Pieters launched a life-long career that placed her on the centre stage of music education in the country.

As a young teacher at the New Amsterdam Anglican School, she formed a club which would practise every Friday afternoon. In her own words, "I collected the children of the street, and later the youth, in a choir - if you were a cartman, or a civil servant, or a policeman, or the man pulling the logs off the mudflat into the sawmill, or a sugar-cane worker in the fields - you had a voice, you came. We sang and we called ourselves the Lads and Lassies of New Amster-dam."

It was Edith Pieters's first small step in music education and organisation and it was her good fortune that these weekly choral exertions attracted the attention of the local British Council representative who was visiting the town. He selected her for a six-month scholarship in Youth Leadership and Music in England. The scholarship, in 1950-51, enabled her to study music with special relevance to its use as leisure-time and related activities in youth clubs and also gave her the opportunity to visit Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester for practical exposure.

Born at Blairmont, West Bank Berbice, on December 23, 1920, Edith Pieters credited her parents with inculcating the love of music in her. She spent much of her time in New Amsterdam, the home of Edgar Mittelholzer and Wilson Harris which enjoyed a reputation as a centre of culture and literature. It was a good stage on which to start and Edith Pieters made her first public appearance as a singer at age seven. Among her early music teachers was another famous Berbician musician, Valerie Rodway.

Ms Pieters received her early education at the Berbice High School from which she graduated with a Senior Cambridge Certificate. Faced with the usual option for young women in those days - either the civil service or the teaching service - she was channelled into the latter, and went on to the Government Teachers' Training College from which she graduated with a Grade 1, Class 1 Teachers' Certificate in 1945.

Her education was to continue over the next 25 years: she was awarded the Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music

(LRSM) in 1954, and Licentiate of the Trinity College of Lecturers (LTCL) in 1960. In 1962, she graduated from the University of Reading (UK), with a certificate in Music Education and, later, from the Inter-American University, Puerto Rico, with the BA (Music Education). She also attended the International Music Camp organised by the University of Michigan where she took courses for credits in BA and MA (Music), in 1967-69.

Soon after she had returned from England in 1951, and after being trained in librarianship, Edith Pieters was appointed Librarian at the New Amsterdam Public Free Library 1952-1957. But, seeing herself as an educator rather than as a collector of books, she left the library and returned to her familiar vocation of teaching, this time as senior mistress at the New Amsterdam Congrega-tional School. While there, she was invited to take up the music teacher's appointment at the Bishops' High School (BHS) in Georgetown where she would remain for the next seventeen years until her retirement at the age of 55 in 1975.

BHS transformed provincial potential into national accomplishment. She would not remain a mere classroom teacher but became an innovator and a social organiser. She established the Music Club, school orchestra and a steel band, and launched a much acclaimed annual programme of school concerts. She trained successful participants at the National Music Festivals and contributed to the formation of a youth orchestra, called the 'New Happening,' which brought together music students from Charlestown Second-ary, St Rose's High, and Queen's College, in 1973.

The next year, the group was expanded to em-brace 21 schools which formed a Combined Youth Choir and Or-chestra. Edith Pieters was making things happen.

Her contribution to music education seemed to gather momentum as she grew older after she retired from BHS.

Apparently more active than in her younger days, she was appointed Music Co-ordinator in the Ministry of Education and also served as Co-ordinator of the Music Programme for the Institute of Adult and Continuing Education (IACE) of the University of Guyana; and Lecturer in Music at the Lilian Dewar College of Education and the Cyril Potter College of Education.

The Government of Grenada invited her to work as a consultant and Chief Music Adjudicator at its National Arts Festival. And, she was also involved in preparatory work for a music examination to be made part of the Caribbean Examination Council's (CXC) Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC).

She was co-director of the Redeemer Youth Choir which toured eight states in the USA in 1978; co-ordinated radio programmes such as 'Young Music Makers,' 'Mid-Morning Classics' and 'Concert Hall'; was co-founder and thrice elected president of the Business and Professional Women's Club of Georgetown, an affiliate of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women; and served as a member of the Guyana Teachers' Association (GTA).

For her lifetime achievements in the field of music, Edith Pieters received several awards including the Philip Pilgrim Memorial Harp for distinction in piano performance (1952); the Ministry of Education Award for long and meritorious service; the Wordsworth McAndrew Award for her contribution to music education (2003); and the national award of the Golden Arrow of Achievement (AA) (1988).

A tireless teacher, her entire working life of over sixty years was dedicated to raising the cultural level, refining the tone and enriching the social fabric of Guyana through the medium of music. Her work touched the lives not only of a few lads and lassies of New Amsterdam, but of thousands of students and the men and women of the nation.

Answer 2

Miss Edith Peters contributed to music by teaching it to underpriviledge children, as well as being an accomplished piano player.

Answer 3

Obituary:-Edith Pieters, AA, December 23, 1920 - July 16, 2005

Sunday, July 24th 2005

Edith Pieters