IRA MATH­UR

There is a Bish­op up in de

Great Be­yond

Cause she gone

Great Icon

Dad­dy Son­ny play he ban­jo

When she born

Was de dawn

(of) Dis Woman

Whom we call “Arch­bish­op of Pan”

So Phase II com­ing out

Blaz­ing fire

High­er

Just for her

Wid she Ly­di­ans and wid we pan

To raise de roof like

Han­del’s Mes­si­ah

–EX­CERPT FROM “ARCH­BISH­OP OF PAN”

(Words by Gre­go­ry Bal­lan­tyne | Mu­sic by Len “Boogsie” Sharpe)

This is the sec­ond of a two-part se­ries on the late Pat Bish­op, who died in Au­gust 2011. Near­ly 14 years lat­er, she will be ho­n­oured by the PALM Foun­da­tion (Pat Bish­op Foun­da­tion for Art, Lit­er­a­ture and Mu­sic) with a con­cert on June 29 at the Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um.

The event sum­mons her mem­o­ry, re­flects her vi­sion, and ho­n­ours how she drew out tal­ent—braid­ing the frac­tured strands of many con­ti­nents in­to mu­sic that made us whole.

Book­shelf presents two ex­cerpts: one by her sis­ter, Gillian Bish­op; the oth­er by writer, Ly­di­an, and friend Bar­bara Jenk­ins.

Gillian Bish­op on Pat Bish­op

Gillian Bish­op has been pre­serv­ing Pat Bish­op’s lega­cy for the past 14 years as a found­ing and ac­tive mem­ber of the PALM Foun­da­tion.

My sis­ter, Pat

“At my sis­ter’s memo­r­i­al ser­vice, held at Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral, I made a solemn promise to the con­gre­ga­tion: that I would do every­thing in my pow­er to pre­serve her lega­cy.

Pat Bish­op—artist, mu­si­col­o­gist, and re­cip­i­ent of the Trin­i­ty Cross for her con­tri­bu­tion to art and cul­ture—was my sis­ter.

That promise was soon put to the test when our dear friend, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, com­posed a melody in Pat’s ho­n­our for Phase II’s 2012 Panora­ma per­for­mance. He had com­mis­sioned GB (ca­lyp­so lyri­cist Gre­go­ry Bal­lan­tyne) to write the lyrics for his com­po­si­tion Arch­bish­op of Pan, and, to this end, he in­struct­ed me to “talk tuh GB and tell him ‘bout La­dy B”.

I agreed to meet GB out­side a Ly­di­ans re­hearsal one evening. We sat on a bench, and I gave him as much in­for­ma­tion about Pat as I could. While we were sit­ting out­side the hall, a group of Ly­di­an ladies ar­rived—late but cheer­ful. I thought GB might be won­der­ing, “How could a choir with the Ly­di­ans’ rep­u­ta­tion for ex­cel­lence be so tol­er­ant of late­com­ers?”

I strug­gled to ex­plain this seem­ing­ly re­laxed be­hav­iour of mem­bers, and in so do­ing, I re­called a mantra that my sis­ter had de­vel­oped and lived by for many years: “Un­til all have crossed, none have crossed—and some we have to car­ry.”

When I told him this, he laughed and as­sured me that that was all he need­ed to hear. “Ah have it!” he de­clared, got up, and left.

Two days lat­er, he called me on the tele­phone, sang the song The Arch­bish­op of Pan with its new­ly craft­ed lyrics, and I wept.

Boogsie’s arrange­ment blend­ed steel­pan and choir, in­cor­po­rat­ing el­e­ments of Han­del’s Hal­lelu­jah Cho­rus and The Bat­tle Hymn of the Re­pub­lic—a nod to Pat’s clas­si­cal train­ing and deep com­mit­ment to the steel­pan art form. All her life, Pat had im­mersed her­self in all forms of art, mu­sic, his­to­ry, and pol­i­tics and, ac­cord­ing to her friend Bish­op Clyde Har­vey, “be­lieved in us be­fore we be­lieved in our­selves”.

She taught, coached, and nur­tured so many and made her home, re­hearsal halls, pa­n­yards, and per­for­mance stages of Trinidad and To­ba­go places of de­vel­op­ment and growth and love.

She trained in art. She read wide­ly—mu­sic, the­ol­o­gy, his­to­ry—and made work in all of them. She stayed in Trinidad, even when it made her small and an­gry.

Ed­ward (Ed­die) Cum­ber­batch was by far her most gift­ed stu­dent and mu­si­cal part­ner, bring­ing not on­ly ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent but al­so a tem­pera­ment matched on­ly by the dis­po­si­tion of a saint and marked by hu­mil­i­ty and grace.

Af­ter many years of train­ing, which de­vel­oped his vo­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ties un­der her of­ten-un­usu­al teach­ing style, Ed­die was work­ing to­wards a recital of the song cy­cle Win­ter­reise by Franz Schu­bert, ac­com­pa­nied by Lindy Ann Bod­den Ritch—and just a few short weeks be­fore the per­for­mance of this mag­nif­i­cent work, she col­lapsed and died.

Now, in her ho­n­our—and to re­mind the na­tion of ex­cel­lence, pas­sion, and the depth of our iden­ti­ty as a peo­ple—we are hold­ing a con­cert.

Ed­die will sing again, joined by En­rique Ali on pi­ano and Mae­stro Theron Shaw on gui­tar, along­side the Ly­di­an Male Voice Choir and the Ly­di­an Steel En­sem­ble. There will be voic­es ris­ing in har­mo­ny, the shim­mer of steel­pan un­der stage lights, and the pow­er of mu­sic shaped by some­one who once stood be­fore them, hand raised, draw­ing out a na­tion’s sound.

It will not be a farewell. It will be an an­swer.”

–Gillian Bish­op, June 2025

Bar­bara Jenk­ins on Pat Bish­op

Bar­bara Jenk­ins—a writer, Ly­di­an, and mem­ber of the PALM Foun­da­tion—re­flects on Pat Bish­op’s lega­cy ahead of the con­cert.

Pat Bish­op and me

“Ed­die sang Friends in High Places, and I wept at the Ly­di­ans Christ­mas con­cert. It was 1997. I’d ex­iled my­self in the UK for three years, un­able to face my new bleak re­al­i­ty at home. Ed­die’s voice re­leased my pent-up grief with the as­sur­ance that Paul was “not so far away”.

The song, the mu­sic, and the so­lace of trust­ing sur­ren­der to life’s un­fold­ing car­ried me—un­in­vit­ed and un­ex­pect­ed—to Bish­op Anstey Cen­te­nary Hall one Mon­day evening in Jan­u­ary. I stood in the door­way. Pat Bish­op waved me in, point­ed to her left, and said, “Sit with the so­pra­nos.”

“Un­til all have crossed, none have crossed, and some we have to car­ry”—one of Pat’s mantras—en­cap­su­lates her phi­los­o­phy of meet­ing peo­ple where they are. I can’t hold a note, but that day she de­cid­ed the Ly­di­an fam­i­ly would car­ry me on my jour­ney to a new life.

I leaned on those many gift­ed and ac­com­plished singers who taught me to read mu­sic. I would sit at choir prac­tice and jot down every com­ment, wit­ti­cism, iron­ic state­ment, and mu­si­cal di­rec­tion that Pat ut­tered. Her eru­di­tion, her dis­cern­ment, and her long rhyth­mic sen­tences of com­plex syn­tax punc­tu­at­ed by sud­den Tri­ni in­ter­jec­tions were my priv­i­leged mu­si­cal and lit­er­ary ed­u­ca­tion.

Pat said, “Write”, when I didn’t know that writ­ing is what I should do. As one of her three “scribes”, we pro­duced for each con­cert a book­let with ar­ti­cles on every as­pect of the show—the work, per­form­ers, com­posers, and mu­si­cians—with pho­tos; a col­lec­tor’s item of the big works she made us wor­thy to take on.

I was, in black dress, an in­dis­tin­guish­able but proud Ly­di­an cho­ris­ter, singing with joy among world-class soloists in op­eras, mass­es, and sea­son­al-themed con­certs—in con­cert halls, pa­n­yards, church­es large and small, school halls, and open air.

Bo­cas Lit­Fest had its in­au­gur­al fes­ti­val the year Pat died. Pat was the first read­er at the open­ing, ho­n­our­ing the late Kei­th Smith; a taxi run­ning out­side to hur­ry her to a school to ad­dress the grad­u­at­ing class.

Pat sum­moned me to her home to read the short sto­ry I would present at the first Bo­cas lunchtime read­ings. Je­re­my Poynt­ing of Peepal Tree Press was in that au­di­ence. I emailed him my MFA man­u­script the fol­low­ing year.

When Sic Tran­sit Wag­on & Oth­er Sto­ries was pub­lished, I was com­fort­ed by the cer­tain knowl­edge that Pat Bish­op, my men­tor and guide, would be beam­ing with sat­is­fac­tion—along with Paul, my “Friends in High Places”.

–Bar­bara Jenk­ins, May 2025

The mu­sic ris­es again—not as a re­quiem but in recla­ma­tion, in mem­o­ry, in mak­ing, in the blaze of her cer­tain­ty: that out of chaos, dis­place­ment, and loss, we could re­dis­cov­er the in­her­i­tance of splen­dour with­in our­selves, among our peo­ple—drawn from the scat­tered threads of far-flung con­ti­nents.

Ira Math­ur is a free­lance jour­nal­ist and a colum­nist for Guardian Me­dia. Math­ur is the au­thor of Love the Dark Days, which won the 2023 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Non-Fic­tion.