Ten­nile Al­leyne

As I sit at the back of All Saints An­gli­can Church dur­ing Mu­sic, Voice and Soul, a con­cert head­lined by the East­ern Youth Chorale, I can­not help but no­tice their con­duc­tor, John Michael Thomas. He ges­tic­u­lates pas­sion­ate­ly, evok­ing crescen­dos, dimin­u­en­dos and even si­lence from his charges. With­out a doubt, this con­duc­tor/mu­si­cal di­rec­tor gets in­to his per­for­mances. It is ev­i­dent that the on­ly thing that su­per­sedes Thomas's mu­si­cal tal­ents is his pas­sion for de­vel­op­ing and nur­tur­ing the art form in T&T.

The self-pro­claimed "Arim­i­an" has been re­lent­less in his quest to ex­pose the cre­ative gifts of the na­tion's youth through his brain child, The East­ern Per­form­ing Arts Chorale (EYC). Al­though Thomas has been a per­former for many years, it seems that his mu­si­cal prowess was steadi­ly in­cu­bat­ed in the womb, since his moth­er was al­so a singer and mu­sic teacher. As an in­fant, he was con­stant­ly sur­round­ed by mu­sic when he ac­com­pa­nied his moth­er to Ari­ma Girls' RC where she worked.

"When she car­ried me to school, I would sit in the play pen and lis­ten to the mu­sic she taught," he said. At age sev­en he was se­lect­ed by the prin­ci­pal at Ari­ma Boys' RC to join his school's clas­si­cal choir. This her­ald­ed the be­gin­ning of his per­form­ing ca­reer. Thomas soon be­gan to com­pete, trained by his moth­er and lat­er by his child­hood vo­cal coach, Miss Pierre, who helped re­fine him as a per­former. "Miss Pierre taught me to play and read mu­sic. She al­so taught me breath­ing tech­niques," he dis­closed. In­ter­est­ing­ly, he re­called an ear­ly child­hood mem­o­ry of his first de­feat at the Bi-an­nu­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val in Port-of-Spain, which in­stilled in him the work eth­ic he has adopt­ed as a pro­fes­sion­al to­day. "The first time I com­pet­ed in Port-of-Spain I was ter­ri­fied and I placed sec­ond. That was a turn­ing point be­cause I told my­self I had to hold my­self to a high­er stan­dard, since be­ing the best singer in Ari­ma was not good enough."

From then on­wards, the bold lyric tenor has been vic­to­ri­ous at the pop­u­lar fes­ti­val, cop­ping most ti­tles, name­ly in voice and steel­pan. His pas­sion for mu­sic lat­er man­i­fest­ed in the open­ing of Hal­lelu­jah Mu­sic School with his moth­er, where Thomas would help teach mu­sic to in­ter­est­ed stu­dents free of charge.

He re­count­ed ac­quir­ing old pans from the pa­n­yards af­ter Car­ni­val to use as in­stru­ments, and old bench­es from his moth­er's school to fur­nish their mu­sic school. Af­ter com­plet­ing his CXC ex­ams, he was in­vit­ed to join The Ly­di­ans Choir by Pat Bish­op, who was im­pressed by his per­for­mances at mu­sic fes­ti­vals. "At the Ly­di­ans, they be­lieve mu­sic is a gift. One that should be giv­en freely al­so," he stat­ed. His ex­pe­ri­ence with the dis­tin­guished choir gave him the im­pe­tus to cre­ate his own choir, East­ern Youth Chorale.

"I would pride my­self say­ing that they are one of the best youth chorales in the Caribbean." The group, which ini­tial­ly start­ed with 12 alum­ni singers from the Ari­ma Boys' RC and Ari­ma Girls' RC, even­tu­al­ly bur­geoned to 40 mem­bers over the years. The East­ern Youth Chorale has now be­come a sta­ple at cor­po­rate func­tions, wed­dings and din­ners through­out the coun­try. "We have from the for­tu­nate to the less for­tu­nate. Peo­ple join be­cause of their love for mu­sic. When they come to East­ern Youth Chorale, they for­get where they are from and bond as fam­i­ly," Thomas beamed. He al­so boasts of a ver­sa­tile choir that per­forms var­i­ous gen­res of mu­sic. "My base is clas­si­cal mu­sic but we ven­ture in­to parang, ca­lyp­so, Broad­way etc. Our scope is quite large."

Thomas is cur­rent­ly a Mu­sic ma­jor at New York Uni­ver­si­ty, and is prac­tis­ing for his much an­tic­i­pat­ed con­cert, Dis­tin­guished Gen­tle­men, where he will be per­form­ing along­side Tevin Gall, Ed­die Cum­ber­batch and oth­er lead­ing male vo­cal­ists at St Crispin's Church, Wood­brook, on Ju­ly 30. "For me, mu­sic is life. Ul­ti­mate­ly, I want to get qual­i­fied so that I can come back home to start an opera com­pa­ny and con­tin­ue build­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go's mu­sic fra­ter­ni­ty."