KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Le­An­dra Head has a deep pas­sion for clas­si­cal mu­sic. Al­though trained as an opera singer at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), with a Bach­e­lor’s in Fine Arts spe­cial­is­ing in mu­sic and voice, the art mu­sic of the West­ern world re­mains rel­a­tive­ly un­pop­u­lar lo­cal­ly, of­fer­ing few op­por­tu­ni­ties to per­form.

In 2024, the vo­cal­ist de­cid­ed to take mat­ters in­to her own hands by cre­at­ing a unique event—Le­An­dra Live: Strings and Voice—fea­tur­ing a sig­na­ture blend of clas­si­cal, con­tem­po­rary, and Caribbean fu­sion.

The event was well re­ceived. En­cour­aged by the strong sup­port, it will re­turn this year to Stollmey­er’s Cas­tle on April 26 at 7 pm and April 27 at 6 pm, of­fer­ing au­di­ences an el­e­gant evening of re­fined artistry in a his­toric set­ting.

“I re­al­ly don’t have many op­por­tu­ni­ties to per­form clas­si­cal mu­sic, they are few and far be­tween, that is kind of telling,” she said.

“As a re­sult, I have segued in­to dif­fer­ent gen­res that I en­joy and have been able to get op­por­tu­ni­ties to per­form in. That’s one of the things I want­ed to do with this show, I love mu­si­cal the­atre and I love clas­si­cal mu­sic and I don’t have many op­por­tu­ni­ties to per­form that.

“What I have done is cre­at­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for my­self to do the things that I en­joy.”

While plan­ning her up­com­ing event, one of Le­An­dra’s biggest sup­port­ers–her ma­ter­nal grand­fa­ther An­drew Skin­ner–passed away.

“This year’s event car­ries a very per­son­al sig­nif­i­cance,” she said.

“He al­ways in­sist­ed on pur­chas­ing his own tick­et to my shows. He was al­ways very en­cour­ag­ing.

“I have se­lect­ed songs for this year’s event with him in mind, songs that he would have en­joyed, songs which he would have liked to see me per­form.”

Host­ing her con­cert was a dream come true for Le­An­dra. The pop­u­lar Bri­an Mac­Far­lane cre­at­ed a fairy­tale set­ting at the en­chant­i­ng Stollmey­er’s Cas­tle, en­hanced by the mag­i­cal per­for­mances.

“The theme came about from my love for string in­stru­ments, and I want­ed to do a show cen­tred around that,” she added.

“I had Ste­fan Roach as one of my guest per­form­ers, and Ulyana Shapo­val–an in­cred­i­ble gui­tarist from Ukraine whom I met while work­ing on a cruise ship. I was thrilled and for­tu­nate to have her be part of the show.”

For Le­An­dra, the suc­cess of the event was heart-warm­ing and re­ward­ing, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter tak­ing a bold leap of faith.

“Do­ing your own show is a dif­fer­ent an­i­mal, it is so dif­fer­ent to be­ing a guest at some­one’s event,” she said.

“There is a lot more prepa­ra­tion, a lot more sac­ri­fices that you have to make. I am re­al­ly for­tu­nate to have very sup­port­ive peo­ple be­hind me like my moth­er, An­drea De Sil­va, who is a ma­jor dri­ving force be­hind a lot of the things I would like to do.

“If I have any ideas and men­tion them to her, that’s it, it’s go­ing to hap­pen.”

Le­An­dra, whose ex­pan­sive reper­toire spans clas­si­cal, mu­si­cal the­atre, bossa no­va, jazz, and so­ca, has per­formed on in­ter­na­tion­al stages, in­clud­ing Por­gy and Bess in Bu­dapest.

She has shared the stage with jazz leg­end Hugh Masekela and was the on­ly vo­cal­ist to per­form at the 50th an­niver­sary of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween T&T and Chi­na, where she sang in Man­darin.

While she may seem very brave on the stage, she ad­mits that stage fright con­tin­ues to be a chal­lenge.

“Even though it is some­thing we (per­form­ers) have been do­ing for a very long time and we have so much ex­pe­ri­ence on the stage we still get ner­vous, we are still hu­mans at the end of it all,” she said.

“For me, it re­al­ly de­pends on the set­ting I’m per­form­ing in that day. Some­times I feel a wave of nerves, and oth­er times I’m sur­pris­ing­ly calm. It varies, but there’s al­ways a sense of an­tic­i­pa­tion and ex­cite­ment.

“I usu­al­ly ground my­self with breath­ing ex­er­cis­es and by vi­su­al­is­ing the per­for­mance ahead. On days when the nerves are stronger, I start by sim­ply ac­knowl­edg­ing how I’m feel­ing—re­mind­ing my­self it’s okay to be ner­vous. Then I’ll in­cor­po­rate some­thing phys­i­cal, like stretch­ing or light move­ment, be­fore go­ing in­to the breath­work and vi­su­al­i­sa­tion.”

It’s a ma­jor dif­fer­ence from her younger years, when she was un­able to have con­trol.

“When I was younger, the anx­i­ety could be over­whelm­ing—so much so that it would make me phys­i­cal­ly ill,” she said.

“I even reached a point where I didn’t want to per­form at all. But I was a child then, and I didn’t have the tools I have now. Look­ing back, I re­al­ly wish I did.”

De­spite the ups and downs, the so­pra­no vo­cal­ist has made the bold de­ci­sion to choose mu­sic as her ca­reer.

“A lot of peo­ple don’t see it as a job,” she said, adding that it is “some­thing one can pur­sue and make a liv­ing from.”

She ac­knowl­edged that there are chal­lenges, like with most things, “but you start from small and build your way from strength to strength.”

Le­An­dra Live–Strings and Voice II will fea­ture an en­sem­ble of ac­com­plished mu­si­cians: clas­si­cal gui­tarist Ste­fan Roach, gui­tarist Johnathon Agos­ti­ni, pi­anist Eu­n­mi Choi, cel­list Wa­sia Ward, and vi­o­list Nari­ba Her­bert, with a spe­cial guest per­for­mance from the world-renowned sitar mae­stro Mun­gal Patasar.