White Oak Presbyterian Church is one of the original founding choirs of the very popular Eden United Choir Festival, which celebrated its 18th Anniversary on Sunday, May 16th at Eden United Church. As usual, the event was a great success, due in no small part to the enthusiasm of the inividual choir members, all held together by Stuart Sladden, the Music Director of Eden United. This was his last time leading this Festival, and we wish him well in his move to Winnipeg. If you were there, thank you for your support, and if you weren't, we'll see you next year.

Our choir has also been attending annual Music Workshops conducted by Don Besig and Nancy Price of Rochester, NY., sponsored by Leslie Music of Oakville. Of interest to choirs and music directors from a wide range of churches, the workshops aim to introduce new music and inspire choirs to try different types of music in worship settings. They are also a wonderful opportunity to sing with 150 other like-minded people!

While we are a small group (eight of us on a good day!), we do try to provide an interesting and appropriate variety of music during our worship services, as can be seen from the listing in the sidebar. We particularly enjoy the challenge of a capella singing, and the Christmas Eve "Ave Maria" by Franz Biebl did that in spades, as each singer is entirely on their own (all eight voices in two choirs of four). Yes, of course we were nervous, but it worked out well in the end!

The Praise Song component of our music program involves a few other noble souls who have "volunteered" to lead the opening section of the Worship Service. This group also makes use of keyboard, guitar(s), electric bass and drums.

The Praise team is always open to expansion, both in membership, instrumentation and repertoire!

Once in a while, we are also able to persuade our Nigerian or Sri Lankan membership to provide us with some alternative music with a distinctively non-Canadian feel!