Wendy chasing her dream

IT MAY have seemed like a gamble when Wendy left her well-paying job at bpTT in chase of her dream — a solo singing career. Her friends thought she was crazy. But all that mattered to her was “doing something I loved.” It must have been an exercise of foresight, since she had done the same sometime earlier when the opportunity came to sing with the band Second Imij (now Imij and Co). The 28-year-old left her flight attendant job with Air Caribbean just after eight months.

Her persistence eventually paid off. Last evening, Wendy and vocalist Wendell Constantine, staged their own show “Broadway The Concert” and sang to a sold-out crowd of over 700 people at Queen’s Hall. It took two months of planning “and everything else that came with it,” long nights inclusive; but she didn’t mind. “I love Broadway music and before, Wendell and I had teamed up (to sing) for weddings and stuff, we talked about doing Broadway music and he was game for it and we came together.” The show was two-fold: to treat an audience to duet performances of popular ballads such as Evita, Chicago, My Fair Lady and Phantom of the Opera, and to launch their Broadway CD. It was evident that Wendy was bitten by the “singing-bug,” as early as primary school, when she was cast as lead singer in the school play “Cinderella.” “If you’d ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would always say a singer. It was a dream for me.” She successfully pulled off her part as Cinderella singing “In My Own Corner.” The real challenge came when she preferred to suppress her desire to join the school choir in secondary school, just to keep up with the in-crowd.

Formerly of San Fernando, she attended Holy Faith Convent, Penal and later obtained a transfer to Providence Girls Catholic School when her family moved to the west. “None of my friends weren’t interested in being in the choir, so that meant not going into the choir. At school I just wanted to fit in,” Wendy said. When Joey Ng Wai offered her the chance to perform in his cover band “ITCZ,” she took it. That lasted just one year. “I enjoyed it for what it was, but it really wasn’t me,” she said. “Then Joey started another band called ‘Joey and Friends’ and we performed at corporate functions and weddings.” That lasted four years. She re-directed her focus after joining the Marionettes Chorale as a first soprano. Her mother, Elizabeth Sheppard, was her inspiration since she has been with the choir for eight years. “I had attended one of their shows and I was totally amazed by what I heard.”

But she didn’t shelve her dream of becoming a solo act “like a cabaret singer. I wanted to know how much I could do by myself and I wanted to do all types of music. With the bands I would sing like five or six songs in a night, but I wondered if I could go on my own, singing like 20 or more songs,” Wendy revealed. She got her wish — her very first solo act at the Hilton Trinidad, which was soon followed by requests to perform at other engagements. Not long after she became a regular at the Chaconia Inn. “My biggest show was ‘Broadway The Concert.’” Future plans? The animal lover and TSPCA volunteer said: “I don’t know what this will turn out to be. People say why don’t you try to make it abroad. But I don’t have it in me to pick up myself and go to another country and hope that somebody discovers me. I don’t know if I want to be a mega star, because with that your life isn’t the same anymore — the price you have to pay.

“What I would really like is to audition for a big production — with costumes, the drama. I think I would like that. I would like to make a name for myself in the Caribbean islands. I’m not going to say it (US tours) is never going to happen, but I don’t dream unrealistic things. Right now I’m doing what I love to do and I’m making a good living... It’s in God’s hands. I believe that if you have a job you enjoy and you’re making money doing it, then it’s something to hold on to.”