Al­most 11 years af­ter his death, Ald­wyn Roberts, known in the ca­lyp­so world as Lord Kitch­en­er, is to be ho­n­oured by the T&T Gov­ern­ment. From to­day, the pub­lic au­di­to­ri­um of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) will be known as the Ald­wyn Roberts, Lord Kitch­en­er Au­di­to­ri­um. Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters will un­veil a plaque to com­mem­o­rate the event at the re­nam­ing cer­e­mo­ny, sched­uled for 11 am to­day at NA­PA.

In a state­ment, Pe­ters said: "Re­nam­ing of the au­di­to­ri­um in ho­n­our of Lord Kitch­en­er is a fit­ting trib­ute to a great ca­lyp­son­ian and en­ter­tain­er who was in­stru­men­tal in putting ca­lyp­so on the world map and, who cre­at­ed some of the best known and loved mu­sic for pan in the coun­try. "His name on the au­di­to­ri­um will serve as a last­ing sym­bol of the im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion he made to the art form," Pe­ters said. The late Road March King, whose ca­lyp­so ca­reer spanned some 62 years, died in 2000 at the age of 78.

Kitch, as he was fond­ly known, was the founder of the Ca­lyp­so Re­vue Tent.

He mi­grat­ed to Eng­land in the ear­ly days of his ca­reer and was, there­fore, one of the first artistes to take ca­lyp­so to the world stage. Dur­ing his hey­day, his com­po­si­tions dom­i­nat­ed Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions. Two of Kitch's chil­dren, Ker­nel and Quer­wina, con­tin­ue to car­ry on his lega­cy.