KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt 

So­pra­no Le­An­dra Head has been singing al­most since she could speak. At the age of three, she sang Whit­ney Hous­ton’s ‘Run to You’ for her par­ents—pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er An­drea De Sil­va and for­mer US Ma­rine Corps Mas­ter Sergeant Leroy Head Jr—suc­cess­ful­ly scal­ing high notes even sea­soned per­form­ers are re­luc­tant to at­tempt.

“I have a vague mem­o­ry of this; cer­tain­ly my moth­er and oth­er rel­a­tives have spo­ken about this,” she said. “I re­mem­ber al­ways lov­ing songs and singing them from just hear­ing them. I’ve al­ways loved singing; it’s in my DNA, so to speak.”

Her vo­cal abil­i­ties earned her Best Soloist ho­n­ours for three con­sec­u­tive years at the pop­u­lar San­Fest mu­sic fes­ti­val. Her first pub­lic per­for­mance was at the pop­u­lar chil­dren’s tal­ent con­test Twelve and Un­der, broad­cast on Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) and host­ed by tele­vi­sion icon Hazel Ward-Red­man.

Just nine years old at the time, Head placed sec­ond with a spell­bind­ing ren­di­tion of ‘Some­where Over the Rain­bow’, and earned the Joy Cae­sar tro­phy, which is award­ed to the se­ries’ most out­stand­ing vo­cal­ist.

Ward-Red­man im­me­di­ate­ly recog­nised Head’s vo­cals as com­ing from a high­er source and told her moth­er, “‘Her voice is a gift from God.’”

“I don’t re­mem­ber much about that en­counter, but 12 and Un­der did sig­nal the start of my per­for­mance ca­reer,” Head said. “My very first per­for­mance was on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion, and I’ll al­ways be grate­ful for that,” she added.

“I was ex­cit­ed and a lit­tle ap­pre­hen­sive when peo­ple spoke about my voice and abil­i­ty in this way. It was a lit­tle scary and some­times over­whelm­ing.”

Head took a break from per­form­ing in her ear­ly teens while at­tend­ing sec­ondary school. But it was dur­ing a trip to New York in March 2013 that she reignit­ed her pas­sion dur­ing an open mic event at the pop­u­lar Sug­ar Bar in Man­hat­tan, owned by Amer­i­can singer/song­writer duo Ash­ford and Simp­son. Fol­low­ing her per­for­mance, she was im­me­di­ate­ly asked to re­turn to do her own set on an­oth­er night.

In Au­gust of that same year, Head was cho­sen by Amer­i­can pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Liv­ing Arts In­ter­na­tion­al Inc as the youngest per­son in the cast to per­form in George Gersh­win’s land­mark opera Por­gy and Bess in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary.

“I knew singing was some­thing I want­ed to do, even af­ter tak­ing that break,” she said. “It was some­thing that was com­pelling me, even in my re­luc­tance. Not to men­tion the en­cour­age­ment from fam­i­ly, friends, some in the in­dus­try, and mem­bers of the pub­lic.”

When the op­por­tu­ni­ty came to share the stage with her younger sis­ter, Ty­lah Head, at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val in 2017, they claimed the Anne Fridal Cup for Op­er­at­ic Duet.

Head al­so won Best Folk Choir Per­for­mance with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) Choir, where she sang the so­lo. She grad­u­at­ed from UTT that year with a Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts de­gree in mu­sic with a spe­cial­i­sa­tion in voice train­ing in clas­si­cal mu­sic.

“UTT was a good ex­pe­ri­ence giv­en the chal­lenges. I learned a lot,” she said. “I had ex­cel­lent pro­fes­sors in the per­son of the late Dr Mikkens and, of course, Dr Leah Brown, who has been a re­al men­tor and friend. I want­ed to per­fect my craft, and uni­ver­si­ty was the next log­i­cal step. I met a lot of won­der­ful peo­ple, some of whom I have per­formed with and are my cher­ished friends.”

On No­vem­ber 5, 2023, Head put on her own pro­duc­tion, Sound­tracks Through Time, which paid trib­ute to Beryl McBurnie, a Trinida­di­an dancer and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er who took Caribbean dance to stages across the world in the 1940s. The icon al­so es­tab­lished Trinidad’s first the­atre, The Lit­tle Carib The­atre in Wood­brook, Port-of-Spain.

With an im­pres­sive reper­toire of much-loved movie sound­tracks, from ‘Gold Fin­ger’, ‘My Heart Will Go On’, ‘I Will Al­ways Love You’, to ‘Nev­er Enough’ from the movie ‘The Great­est Show­man’, Head’s dy­nam­ic, out­stand­ing, and thrilling vo­cals de­light­ed and once again moved the au­di­ence to a stand­ing ova­tion and pro­longed ap­plause.

“This show was a very big feat for me. There was a lot of work that went in­to it,” she said. “It was a large cast of mu­si­cians, and I was grate­ful to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do this show at Lit­tle Carib The­atre and tie in the trib­ute to the pi­o­neer Beryl McBurnie.”

In­spired by the pas­sion of soul di­va Et­ta James and the melod­ic phras­ings of the first la­dy of jazz, El­la Fitzger­ald, Head wants to con­tin­ue en­ter­tain­ing.

“I want to keep pro­duc­ing shows, record my own mu­sic, and have more op­por­tu­ni­ties to per­form in­ter­na­tion­al­ly,” Head added. “I just want to keep grow­ing my ca­reer in mu­sic and see how far I can go.”

Le­An­dra Live—Strings and Voice

Her lat­est event, Le­An­dra Live—Strings and Voice, will be held at Stollmey­er’s Cas­tle Kil­lar­ney on April 27–28.

It will fea­ture an eclec­tic mix of gen­res, in­clud­ing clas­si­cal, mu­si­cal the­atre, Fla­men­co style, and Bossa no­va.

High­lights in­clude per­for­mances by Head and gui­tarist Ste­fan Roach, pi­anist Eu­n­mi Choi from Ko­rea, singer Ty­lah Head, cel­list Wa­sia Ward, vi­o­list Nari­ba Her­bert, and spe­cial guest clas­si­cal gui­tarist Ulyana Shapo­val from Ukraine.