Mu­sic ig­nites all ar­eas of child de­vel­op­ment and skills for school readi­ness, in­clud­ing in­tel­lec­tu­al, so­cial-emo­tion­al, lan­guage, and over­all lit­er­a­cy. It helps the body and the mind work to­geth­er. Ex­pos­ing chil­dren to mu­sic dur­ing ear­ly de­vel­op­ment helps them learn the sounds and mean­ings of words. Danc­ing to mu­sic helps chil­dren build mo­tor skills while al­low­ing them to prac­tice self-ex­pres­sion.

Nahla Ram­s­ingh, known for her zeal­ous con­fi­dence and pas­sion for per­for­mance, wants to be­come a pro­fes­sion­al mu­si­cian and learn how to man­age an or­ches­tra. “I dream of study­ing bal­let in Paris. I wish all chil­dren had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do mu­sic and dance at school just like math­e­mat­ics and all the oth­er sub­jects.”

En­rap­tured by the cel­lo

This 11-year-old cel­list re­calls the awe she felt, the first time she saw her el­der sis­ter per­form­ing at a con­cert in Queen’s Hall. “The per­for­mance awak­ened some­thing in me. I fell in love with the or­ches­tra. It was the ce­ment­ing of some­thing that had start­ed when I first at­tend­ed my sis­ter’s re­hearsals. Vivid­ly she de­scribes her first en­counter with an in­stru­ment, she now plays every day. “I ini­tial­ly laid my eyes on this won­der­ful in­stru­ment and im­me­di­ate­ly be­came en­rap­tured and amazed by the sight and sound of the cel­lo.”

Start­ed at age 6

Cel­lo was not her first mu­si­cal en­counter, Nahla start­ed play­ing pi­ano at age 6, “my mom en­cour­aged me to learn the pi­ano, but it did not hold my in­ter­est and I was not pro­gress­ing at the pi­ano. That got my mom’s at­ten­tion and even­tu­al­ly was the cat­a­lyst that led her to se­ri­ous­ly ex­plore cel­lo class­es for me.”

“My first cel­lo was small­er than av­er­age and was of won­der­ful qual­i­ty. As I re­ceived it, the var­nished wood against my fin­ger­tips made me feel like I was in heav­en and play­ing for the first time was spec­tac­u­lar. I’ll nev­er for­get the first time I walked across the stage at NA­PA. I felt like this is ex­act­ly where I be­long, what I want­ed to do for the rest of my life. Cel­lo is my life. I was so small back then that Mr. Listhrop, the mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Youth Phil­har­mon­ic (TTYP) had to get a spe­cial stool for me to sit on, as the chairs used by the oth­er stu­dents were too big for me.”

“I had a tinge of stage fright at the be­gin­ning but I soon learned that play­ing on stage was the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show Trinidad and To­ba­go and if pos­si­ble the world, who I re­al­ly am and what I was made of. Even­tu­al­ly, I be­came more and more con­fi­dent and out-spo­ken, ac­cept­ed my­self as be­ing unique and I be­gan to trust my­self and the de­ci­sions I made in the mu­si­cal spec­trum.”

Bal­anc­ing mu­sic and aca­d­e­mics

Nahla ra­di­ates ex­u­ber­ance as she shared, “I have an un­wa­ver­ing fas­ci­na­tion and love for the arts.” How­ev­er, she be­lieved there were sev­er­al chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances when it came to study­ing and find­ing mo­ti­va­tion. “If I’m be­ing hon­est, I had to dig deep with­in my­self to get the mo­ti­va­tion to ac­tu­al­ly study. I want­ed to play the cel­lo, every wak­ing mo­ment I had.”

“How­ev­er, af­ter sup­port­ive con­ver­sa­tions with my par­ents and el­der sis­ter, I rec­og­nized the im­por­tance in cre­at­ing that bal­ance. With re­newed vigour, I worked to­wards get­ting in­to the school of my dreams – St. Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School (SAGHS). For the SEA prepa­ra­tions, I had to shift my pri­or­i­ties and my aca­d­e­mics got more at­ten­tion, how­ev­er mu­sic was my es­cape from the de­mand­ing prepa­ra­tions. It was all worth it, as on the re­sults day, I was filled with de­light­ed when I saw I passed for SAGHS. This is the next step, I take in Sep­tem­ber.”

“My el­der sis­ter, Alyssa Frost is my role mod­el. She’s the per­son I look up to, the per­son I can con­fide in, and we share many ex­pe­ri­ences to­geth­er. My par­ents, won­der­ful sis­ter and friends are the per­fect cir­cle of sup­port, mo­ti­va­tion, strength, and in­spi­ra­tion. With them at my side, I know I can ac­com­plish any­thing I put my mind to.”

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Youth Phil­har­mon­ic (TTYP) is a non-prof­it or­ga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion and per­for­mance ex­cel­lence among the youth of Trinidad & To­ba­go. TTYP is the on­ly youth sym­pho­ny or­ches­tra in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the largest in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean with over 150 chil­dren and youth from ages 4-29. “Through­out the last two decades we have nur­tured, men­tored, hun­dreds of our na­tion’s chil­dren to be­come life-long learn­ers in the God-giv­en gift of mak­ing mu­sic” shared mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Ken­neth Listhrop.

To­day, Au­gust 14th, the con­cert Seeds-Sea­sons-New Be­gin­nings fea­tures the mu­si­cal work of Baroque com­pos­er An­to­nio Vi­val­di and cel­e­brates the first per­for­mance since March 13, 2020. Fea­tured are vi­o­lin­ists/Soloists Dani­cia Mor­ris, and Caris­sa Sub­ar. All pro­ceeds will go to­ward the dream off at­tain­ing the TTYP Mu­sic Acad­e­my for our na­tion’s chil­dren and youth. TTYP’s vi­sion is to be the Caribbean’s pre­mier cen­ter, pro­vid­ing a safe learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment and pos­i­tive learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ences to com­bat ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy, while prepar­ing stu­dents for ter­tiary lev­el stud­ies and ca­reers in the per­form­ing arts.

Per­sons can sup­port us af­ter the con­cert by be­com­ing pa­trons, do­nat­ing an in­stru­ment/s, do­nat­ing to our “Build­ing TTYP” ac­count

RBL 870801692001, or vis­it ttyp.org