Our Story

For seventy-three years the Stirling Festival of Sacred Praise has been promoting a love of Sacred Praise, especially among children and young people. It is an annual event that has been taking place at St. Paul's United Church, Stirling ON. The festival celebrates instrumental music, vocal music, speech arts, and is open to all ages and abilities. Highly competent adjudicators are carefully chosen each year by the Stirling Festival Committees and Executive to assess the performances and provide written and verbal assessments that encourage and enrich both participants and observers. The Stirling Festival of Sacred Praise attracts competitors and auditors from all across Ontario, and beyond. Festival participants range from the very young to senior, and the people involved come from all walks of life.

The festival was begun in 1951 by Rev. A.E. and Mrs. Muriel Baker, minister of St. Paul's at the time. The festival has evolved over the years, adding new classes, in order to keep up with changing times. Our latest changes have centered upon opportunites in popular music and speech arts which not only include scripture, but story telling, monologue, prose, poetry etc .

Our festival became a member of the Ontario Music Festival Association in 2010 and since this time, many of our participants have had the opportunity to enter the provincial competitions.