The T&T Mu­sic Fes­ti­val As­so­ci­a­tion cel­e­brates its Di­a­mond Ju­bilee in 2016, be­gin­ning with the host­ing of its 31st Mu­sic Fes­ti­val from Feb­ru­ary 14 to March 12 at venues in North, South and To­ba­go un­der the pa­tron­age of Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts.

The Gala Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny will be held at Queen's Hall, St Ann's on Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 14 and be­gins at 5 pm, fea­tur­ing per­for­mances from past cham­pi­ons and the Na­tion­al Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra.

Tick­ets are rea­son­ably priced at $100 and are avail­able at Queen's Hall and Na­pari­ma Bowl. Pa­trons may al­so email in­fo@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org to re­serve their tick­ets.

The first mu­sic fes­ti­val were held in March 1948, with the pre­lim­i­nar­ies at the Roy­al Vic­to­ria In­sti­tute (now the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um) and the fi­nals at the Princes Build­ing (now the site of NA­PA, Port-of-Spain). Since then, the fes­ti­val has been a sta­ple of cul­tur­al life in T&T. It has cre­at­ed last­ing mem­o­ries for peo­ple in all walks of life and launched the ca­reers of many of our out­stand­ing mu­si­cians in all gen­res of mu­sic.

The 31st Mu­sic Fes­ti­val will fea­ture Ju­nior (day­time) and Open (evening) Class­es at Queen's Hall (Feb­ru­ary 15 to March 6); Na­pari­ma Bowl (Feb­ru­ary 19 to March 3); and, the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex (Feb­ru­ary 15 to 19).

Pa­trons and sup­port­ers can re­ceive the as­so­ci­a­tion newslet­ter and up­dates on oth­er Di­a­mond Ju­bilee ac­tiv­i­ties by email­ing in­fo@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org us­ing the sub­ject "Newslet­ter Re­quest." They can al­so keep up to date on Face­book at: www.face­book.com/ttmu­sicfes­ti­val, or Fol­low us on Twit­ter: @ttm­fa.

more in­fo

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, con­tact:

Na­tion­al Of­fice: 9, Av­enue First, Ste 4, St James; in­fo@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org

North: Queen's Hall, St Ann's, (756-1236/789-4929); north@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org

South: 2, Ruth Av­enue, Les Ef­forts West, San Fer­nan­do (333-0402); south@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org

To­ba­go: 495-6441/771-1872/309-0750; to­ba­go@ttmu­sicfes­ti­val.org