Michelle Loubon

Mere weeks be­fore T&T cel­e­brates its In­de­pen­dence, the coun­try has been plunged in­to mourn­ing at the loss of artist/con­duc­tor/mu­si­col­o­gist Pat Bish­op. Shock­waves swept across the coun­try at her sud­den demise. Peo­ple were heart­bro­ken. Still reel­ing from the shock, friends and loved ones slipped past the dense fo­liage at Bish­op's home at #8 Al­fre­do Street, Wood­brook. Last night, her dis­traught sis­ter Gillian Bish­op re­ceived a steady stream of peo­ple who came to of­fer con­do­lences. Teary-eyed, Ex­o­dus man­ag­er Ainsworth Mo­hammed gave Bish­op a hug. For­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Mar­i­lyn Gor­don chat­ted about her lega­cy with oth­er friends.

Among those who ex­pressed heart­break were mem­bers of the Ly­di­ans' Choir who had been prepar­ing a reper­toire for the Na­tion­al Awards Cer­e­mo­ny. St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus Li­brar­i­an Jen­nifer Joseph penned the sen­ti­ments of trea­sur­er Va­lerie David­son. David­son said: "The choir prac­tice took place like nor­mal at the Bish­op Anstey High School on Fri­day night. She spoke about the need to pro­mote Ed­dy Cum­ber­batch's con­cert (Win­ter­reisse) sched­uled for ear­ly Sep­tem­ber. She was urg­ing mem­bers to come out to prac­tice." David­son added: "Pat died just as she would have want­ed and lit­er­al­ly with her boots on-in ser­vice to coun­try."

David­son said the shows would go on as sched­uled be­cause that is "how Pat would have want­ed it." Joseph said: "T&T has lost a true pa­tri­ot whose life was con­sumed with ser­vice-ser­vice to coun­try, to peo­ple and to the arts." Joseph said Bish­op had taught her both Art and His­to­ry at Bish­op's High School, Keate Street, Port-of-Spain. As dark­ness fell, more choir mem­bers flocked to Bish­op's home. Dis­solv­ing in­to tears, they raised their voic­es in uni­son singing "Sweet Char­i­ot Car­ry Me Home." Even New York artiste Ajahla tele­phoned to ex­press his con­do­lences at the pass­ing a "great gift­ed pa­tri­ot."

Lega­cy of T&T icon

In Bish­op's liv­ing room stood Bish­op's grand pi­ano, dwarfed by an ex­ten­sive li­brary. Every nook and cran­ny of her spa­cious home, with its gin­ger­bread ar­chi­tec­ture, bore ev­i­dence of her taste-in­clud­ing ex­quis­ite sculp­tures and paint­ings. A wa­ter fea­ture trick­led gen­tly next to bam­boo. Apart from her ex­ten­sive art col­lec­tion, Bish­op left a lega­cy of pro­duc­tions like Misa Cubana from No­vem­ber 2010 which she did in con­junc­tion with Cuban com­pos­er Jose Maria Vi­ti­er. In his greet­ings, Vi­ti­er had paid trib­ute to the ge­nius of the Ly­di­ans. He said: "The thrill of hear­ing this mu­sic sung by the Ly­di­ans, and ac­com­pa­nied by this amaz­ing steel or­ches­tra al­lows us to con­tem­plate this work against the much vaster land­scape of our Caribbean cul­ture."