Mu­sic, food and craft came to­geth­er at Sound Forge in Mu­cu­rapo on June 18 as the Fête de la Musique re­turned to Port-of-Spain for its 2026 edi­tion.

The event was host­ed joint­ly by the Al­liance Française, the French Em­bassy and the Port of Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, bring­ing to­geth­er lo­cal per­form­ers and au­di­ences for a free, fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed evening.

This year’s stag­ing al­so marked two an­niver­saries for the or­gan­is­ers: the 75th an­niver­sary of the Al­liance Française of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the 112th an­niver­sary of the City of Port-of-Spain.

Against the in­dus­tri­al back­drop of Sound Forge on Christo­pher Samuel Dri­ve, the pro­gramme moved across sev­er­al mu­si­cal and artis­tic forms, re­flect­ing the range of lo­cal tal­ent.

Among those per­form­ing were An­dre J Don­awa, gui­tarist Ste­fan Roach, Lu­joe and the Gift­ed, the Caribbean Steel­pan En­sem­ble, SeaBath and DJ Lbee.

The pro­gramme al­so ex­tend­ed be­yond mu­sic, with per­for­mances by Zenas Cre­ative Dance Acad­e­my and Trinida­di­an Pa­tois Speak­ers adding dance and spo­ken cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion to the evening.

A craft and food mar­ket formed an­oth­er part of the event, al­low­ing pa­trons to browse lo­cal prod­ucts and sam­ple food while per­for­mances con­tin­ued.

The gath­er­ing at­tract­ed a sub­stan­tial crowd through­out the evening, with fam­i­lies and mu­sic lovers fill­ing the venue.

For the or­gan­is­ers, the event pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­bine the com­mem­o­ra­tion of two long­stand­ing in­sti­tu­tions with a pub­lic cel­e­bra­tion cen­tred on mu­sic.

For Port-of-Spain, it was al­so an­oth­er evening in which the city’s cul­tur­al life moved be­yond tra­di­tion­al per­for­mance spaces, with Sound Forge pro­vid­ing the set­ting for a pro­gramme that brought to­geth­er dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions, gen­res and forms of ex­pres­sion.

The re­sult was an evening that placed mu­sic at the cen­tre while mak­ing room for the wider cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty around it.