KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Er­rol Ed­ward Ma­habir nev­er wa­vered in his com­mit­ment to the im­prove­ment of T&T. His faith in the na­tion re­mained stead­fast un­til his pass­ing ten years ago.

In Feb­ru­ary 2025, the Er­rol Ma­habir Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion was launched to ho­n­our his mem­o­ry. Its first ma­jor fundrais­ing ini­tia­tive—the Dreams Take Flight con­cert se­ries—was in­tro­duced on Au­gust 12 at Arazzi, Mar­aval Road, Port- o- Spain.

“The foun­da­tion will host the Er­rol Ma­habir Memo­r­i­al Con­cert Se­ries,” said com­mit­tee mem­ber Col­in Ma­habir.

“These con­certs will fea­ture a world-class pro­duc­tion team and a cast of some of the finest mu­si­cians T&T has to of­fer. The shows will take the form of mu­si­cal the­atre, with an orig­i­nal sto­ry told through the lyrics of well-known songs span­ning pop, rock, coun­try, and Broad­way.”

Col­in, who wrote the orig­i­nal sto­ry and al­so serves as the show’s ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er, ex­plained that Dreams Take Flight ex­plores the strug­gles many young peo­ple face to­day.

“Through the sto­ries of a sad but hope­ful or­phan search­ing for love in a lone­ly world; a young woman whose low self-es­teem has pushed her in­to sex work; a con­fused young man try­ing to find his iden­ti­ty; and a de­spair­ing ad­dict bat­tling drugs and al­co­hol, the pro­duc­tion tells a tale of hope. It is about how these char­ac­ters, through self-be­lief and their dreams, find the strength to es­cape the lives in which they feel trapped,” he said.

Ma­habir not­ed that his fa­ther—a for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and may­or of San Fer­nan­do un­der the late Dr Er­ic Williams—was a life­long ad­vo­cate for arts and cul­ture.

“Dur­ing his time in pol­i­tics, he used his pow­ers of per­sua­sion to se­cure spon­sor­ship for a num­ber of steel­bands across the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly in San Fer­nan­do—bands like South Stars, Hat­ters, and Fon­claire,” he re­called.

“But be­yond pol­i­tics, Er­rol cham­pi­oned the de­vel­op­ment of young, lo­cal tal­ent, par­tic­u­lar­ly mu­si­cians who lacked the fi­nan­cial means to pur­sue their dreams.”

The foun­da­tion, Col­in ex­plained, builds on his fa­ther’s life’s work by cre­at­ing path­ways for gift­ed mu­si­cians to ac­cess train­ing and men­tor­ship.

“Through struc­tured grant pro­grammes, the Foun­da­tion will not on­ly pro­vide fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, but al­so mon­i­tor the aca­d­e­m­ic and pro­fes­sion­al growth of its re­cip­i­ents. In this way, Er­rol’s vi­sion of em­pow­er­ing tal­ent lives on,” he said.

“The foun­da­tion is com­mit­ted to up­lift­ing the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty by nur­tur­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of artistes. Af­ter all, in every melody lies a dream wait­ing to be re­alised.”

He added: “Some have asked why the Foun­da­tion chose to fo­cus on this sec­tor when there are so many oth­er wor­thy caus­es. The rea­son is sim­ple—Er­rol recog­nised that the cre­ative sec­tor is not on­ly a vi­tal pil­lar of cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, but al­so a pow­er­ful en­gine of so­cial de­vel­op­ment, in­no­va­tion, and eco­nom­ic re­silience.

“By sup­port­ing mu­si­cians through ed­u­ca­tion and ex­po­sure, we can in­spire per­son­al trans­for­ma­tion while strength­en­ing T&T’s artis­tic land­scape. In the spir­it of Er­rol’s ad­vo­ca­cy, this ini­tia­tive reaf­firms that dreams born in the mar­gins can break through when giv­en the right sup­port, guid­ance, and op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

The Dreams Take Flight will be at:

Queen’s Hall, Port-of-Spain – Sep­tem­ber 13 and 14

South­ern Acad­e­my of the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA), San Fer­nan­do – Sep­tem­ber 19, 20, and 21

Tick­ets go on sale from Au­gust 18 and will be avail­able at Queen’s Hall On­line, the Queen’s Hall Box Of­fice, and the SAPA Box Of­fice.

The Pro­duc­tion Team

Stage di­rec­tor – Helmer Hilwig

Mu­si­cal di­rec­tors – June Nathaniel, Gre­go­ry Wong Fo Sue

Artis­tic di­rec­tor – Bri­an Mc­Far­lane

Mar­ket­ing – Ri­az Bha­ga­loo

Light­ing En­gi­neer – Celia Wells

Sound En­gi­neer – Ed­ward Camps

Stage Man­ag­er – Nyamkye Greenidge

Make­up – Sacha Cos­met­ics

Hair – Bal­ly