Pupils from the six education districts of Lagos State put up their best performance at the 2021 Choral and Classical Music Competition at Adeyemi-Bero Hall last Friday.
The program featured solos and choral presentations by soloists and choirs from the six districts as well as guest appearances from the CMS Grammar School choir, the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) choir, Lagos State School Choral and Orchestra, and Mr Adeniyi Olaewe (Niyi Sax).
At the end of an exciting competition that had the choirs dressed in colorful costumes. Ogundele Oladotun of Lagos State Junior Model College, Agbowa representing District III emerged overall best soloist and stage performer. Following him was Ikechukwu Denzel of Ikeja Junior Grammar School (District VI) and Uche Chisom of District Junior College, Agege (District 1). The soloists won school bags, which the Commissioner said were loaded with goodies.
In the Choral presentation, Education District IV emerged first position with 242 points, well ahead of District III, which had 218 points and District VI, which had 215 points. The three districts were rewarded with trophies.
Education Commissioner, Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo, praised the performances put up by the pupils, especially the soloists, whom she said she thoroughly enjoyed listening to.
“I thought it was quite good I enjoyed the music, I enjoyed the songs and those soloists, I love their voices and with training of course it will get better. But for now totally untrained voices to sing like that, I thought that was remarkable,” she said.
Mrs. Adefisayo said the competition gave the pupils a platform to exploit talents that could earn them income in future.
“In the world of today, music and so on are not things that parents need to say, ‘my child should not do this,’ ‘my child should not do that’. It can be a veritable source of great employment for some of these children someday,” she said.
On her part, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mrs. Abosede Adelaja, said the pupils would get more training to get better.
“Today’s competition is just to bring out the skills in our students and also to help them to do better. We have noticed areas that we need to go and work on for a better outing. What they have done today is not bad at all; they did well but now that we are realising the importance of all these activities, they may need to get professionals who will train them so that they can be professional in everything and even at their level they can be making their money and supporting their parents,” she said.
Lead Soloist, a 14-year-old JSS3 pupil, Oludotun, said she gave the solo her best to emerge winner.
Source: The Nations newspaper