One of Anguilla’s leading music educators, Mrs. Joycelynne Ashby, has turned 90.
The occasion was marked on Friday, September 26th , with a Service of Praise and Thanksgiving at the Bethany Gospel Hall on the Stoney Ground Road.
The service included special hymns, tributes and testimonials, poems, prayers and other special items in honour of Mrs. Ashby.
Mrs. Ashby served for some 30 years as the local representative for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in London before retiring in 2010. Mrs. Ashby described as ‘The Dean of Anguilla’s Music Teachers’ has taught more than half of Anguilla’s music teachers among her many students over a period of some 44 years, and has therefore impacted music education in Anguilla in a tremendous way.
She came to Anguilla in the 1970’s with her husband Pastor William Ashby (now deceased) to establish the Bethany Gospel Hall in Stoney Ground. She taught at the High School for some time before beginning to tutor students privately. In 1980 she wrote to the then Royal School of Music in the United Kingdom , now the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and was successful in having Anguilla registered as an examining centre. That has continued up until today.
Mrs. Ashby was awarded the Anguilla Badge of Honour and the Queen’s Certificate in 2009 for her outstanding contribution to music education in Anguilla.
– Press Release
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper.)
