Marionettes celebrates anniversaries

From gripping western classical music, to hit American Broadway and pop music from the 50s and 60s, then transitioning into regional rhythms - Brazilian samba and vintage calypso from Sparrow and Lord Blakie.

All of this is in store for patrons at the three major concert series commemorating the Marionettes’ 45 years of musical excellence. The anniversary celebration takes place tonight, tomorrow and Sunday at Queen’s Hall, St Anns.

Patrons will be treated to the Marionettes’ usual versatility, with a programme ranging from best-loved regional folk and calypso to Western operatic favourites, and everything in between. In addition to premiering some new works, the choir will also bring back some of their best-loved performances, including the inimitable “Carmina Burana”.

Here are some of the highlights:

- Borodin’s “Prince Igor”, Verdi’s “Nabucco”, and Rossini’s “William Tell” - like you’ve never heard it before!

- The unforgettable “Carmina Burana”, of which the Marionettes presented the Caribbean debut in 1989

- Treasured African-American spirituals

- Evergreen hits from the 50s & 60s (the decade that gave birth to the Marionettes)

- Popular musicals “Sister Act” and “Wicked”

- Regional favourites from the Mighty Sparrow, Lord Blakie and more

- A very special tribute to the late Michael Jackson

This must-see performance also celebrates a number of other joyous anniversaries. This year marks 35 years of exemplary leadership from artistic director and conductor Gretta Taylor, assistant musical director Susan Dore and founder member and secretary Joanne Mendes. It also marks 37 years of immeasurable support from sponsors bpTT; 20 years of the Marionettes’ partnership with the Noble Douglas Dance Company; and 14 years since the formation of the Youth Chorale - with members from over 30 schools nationwide.

Taylor has spent her entire musical and professional career in the public service. She excelled for years in the piano classes at the Trinidad & Tobago Music Festival, winning the Norah Grant Trophy and Trinidad Guardian Cup on several occasions (some with long-time friend and Marionettes colleague, Susan Dore). After their successes, she and Dore retired from the Music Festival competitions. Four years later, in 1980, she withdrew from the Marionettes, unbeaten, from festival competition and turned her sights to international tours, bringing home four prizes in the 1980s and 1990s. A University of Toronto graduate with a postgraduate degree in Languages and a Diploma in Education, Taylor taught languages from Forms One to Six at St. Joseph’s Convent in Port-of-Spain for almost 30 years before retiring in 1994.

There she also directed the school’s senior, intermediate and junior choirs for 13 years, during which time the senior choir and its members consistently won top prizes at the Music Festival for solo, ensemble and choral singing, including the Prime Minister’s Trophy for the Most Outstanding Junior Choir of the festival. She also led the choir, combined with St. Mary’s College, to the Youth Choral and Dance Festival in Vienna. In 2005, she was inducted into the St. Joseph’s Convent’s Hall of Excellence. Beyond her work with St. Joseph’s Convent and the Marionettes, Taylor has judged the National Calypso Monarch Finals (both junior and senior), the TT Music Festival mini preliminaries, and the popular Teen Talent and Twelve and Under TV contests, as well as many other youth achievement competitions.

After her retirement she directed the Maria Regina choir from 1994 to 2004, and later assisted the successful Sacred Heart Girls choir in its preparation for the Music Festival. Since assuming the leadership of the Marionettes in 1974, Taylor has produced and directed at least two full-scale musical productions a year, each running for up to six nights, as well as many other concert appearances and fundraisers, and has taken the chorale on five memorable overseas tours to Great Britain, Costa Rica, and the United States.

In 1990, Taylor was awarded the Humming Bird Medal Gold for her outstanding services to music and culture. Taylor has developed and extended the Marionettes’ range and repertoire substantially in her 35 years as musical director.

They have tackled with great success major choral works never before performed in the Caribbean, often in a contemporary idiom unfamiliar to Caribbean audiences, and despite the absence of a conventional orchestra. Though for the choir’s 45th anniversary concert this weekend at Queen’s Hall, it will be joined by an orchestra which includes international string players, as well as the regular steel pans, percussion, brass and woodwinds.

Ever the student and striving for perfection, Taylor has completed musical and conducting courses at the Hereford Summer School of Music (1986) and the Talbot Lampson School for Choral Conductors & Accompanists in London (1986 and 1987), where she won a special award. She is a member of the North American Choral Directors’ Association, and regularly attends their biennial conventions, searching for new ways of improving the choirs’ performance and repertoire. “Our top priority is to do good music of every kind, and to do it as well as we possibly can,” she says, “because we believe in it, and because good music can speak to us all in a profound way if we take the trouble to listen. It has the power to teach, and to heal.”

During this anniversary year, the choir will be renewing their fundraising drive as they move to build their own home in Mucurapo. Polo shirts, CDs, and other memorabilia will be on sale, proceeds from which will go to the Marionettes Property Fund.

Tickets for this anniversary celebration are available at the Queen’s Hall Box Office (open 12 pm-6 pm, tel: 624-1284); online at www.CaribbeanBoxOffice.net; and from members of the choir. They are $200 reserved; $150 open; and $100 for students.