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Sunday, May 25, 2025

T&T loses celebrated musician, conductor

by

1342 days ago
20210920

Gillian Nathaniel Bal­in­tu­lo, a renowned clas­si­cal mu­si­cian and teacher, who for many years served as mu­si­cal di­rec­tor and con­duc­tor of the All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra, has died in South Africa af­ter a brief ill­ness.Her death came just months af­ter the pass­ing of her hus­band Mar­cus in De­cem­ber 2020. Short­ly af­ter, she was di­ag­nosed with can­cer and died peace­ful­ly in her sleep on Sep­tem­ber 11, at her home in Capetown.

Orig­i­nal­ly from Bel­mont, Bal­in­tu­lo was, for many years, an in-de­mand mu­sic teacher. How­ev­er, she is best known for her col­lab­o­ra­tions with All Stars in the 1980s.

In 1987, she was in­vit­ed to ac­com­pa­ny the-then Catel­li All Stars in its per­for­mance of Gersh­win’s con­cer­to, Rhap­sody in Blue for the band’s Clas­si­cal Jew­els VI pro­duc­tion.

The fol­low­ing year she was ap­point­ed mu­si­cal di­rec­tor and con­duc­tor af­ter the re­tire­ment of Jer­ry Jem­mott and led the band in its per­for­mances of Tune of Choice and the test piece in that year’s Steel­band Fes­ti­val.

In 1989, Bal­in­tu­lo toured Ja­maica with the band and the UK in 1990. Metic­u­lous and un­wa­ver­ing with her stan­dards, she earned the re­spect of band mem­bers and was nick­named Steroids in the All Stars fra­ter­ni­ty, for her de­mand­ing and un­re­lent­ing ap­proach.

In pay­ing trib­ute, Mar­cia La Bor­de, her cousin, re­called: “She ex­ud­ed youth­ful en­er­gy, el­e­gance, so­phis­ti­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­ism while com­mand­ing her pan sub­jects.

“Her five-foot-nine inch lean and flex­i­ble frame had a flu­id­i­ty to it, mak­ing her on-stage move­ments, al­most bal­let­ic in na­ture and af­ford­ing her an easy affin­i­ty with her au­di­ences. “This style was unique to the the­atre of pan and sec­ond na­ture to T&T’s pan man.”

She grew up on Nor­folk Street, Bel­mont, with her par­ents Raleigh and Phyl­lis Nathaniel and four sib­lings— Gor­don, June, Ains­ley and Amery.

Nao­mi Nathaniel taught all of her chil­dren to play the pi­ano and in­stilled in all of them a love for mu­sic.

Bal­in­tu­lo, who at­tend­ed St Rose’s Girls RC School and St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, was ac­tive in mu­sic through­out sec­ondary school, com­pet­ing and rep­re­sent­ing her school in the mu­sic fes­ti­val from the age of 12.

La Bor­de said: “In the pi­ano cat­e­go­ry, she was a con­fi­dent com­peti­tor for her age and un­like her old­er com­peti­tors, she some­times played with­out mu­sic sheets hav­ing learnt the pieces by heart.

“From 12 to 18 years she dom­i­nat­ed the cat­e­go­ry for two con­sec­u­tive fes­ti­vals—1962 and 1964, cop­ping first place in the Pi­ano So­lo Class in her re­spec­tive age groups. In 1966, the first place tro­phy for Ju­nior In­stru­men­tal So­lo was award­ed to her. So out­stand­ing were her per­for­mances in these fes­ti­vals, she was award­ed the pres­ti­gious ti­tle of Cham­pi­onship win­ner on each oc­ca­sion.”

She lat­er com­pet­ed in the vo­cal cat­e­go­ry in duets and trios and in 1966 placed first in the Mez­zo-So­pra­no So­lo and Girls’ Vo­cal Duet class­es, shar­ing the lat­ter vic­to­ry with duet part­ner Gyl­la Gat­cliff (nee Reid).

Bal­in­tu­lo went on to the Roy­al Col­lege of Mu­sic in Lon­don, Eng­land, where she at­tained the As­so­ciate of the Roy­al Col­lege of Mu­sic in pi­ano teach­ing. Af­ter re­turn­ing to T&T, she taught at Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege for two years be­fore es­tab­lish­ing her pri­vate teach­ing prac­tice.

“So in-de­mand was her ser­vice that there was usu­al­ly a wait­ing list,” La Bor­de said. At a recital at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), she caught the eye of a mem­ber of the au­di­ence Mar­cus Bal­in­tu­lo, from Botswana, South Africa, who was then a mem­ber of the UWI fac­ul­ty. They were mar­ried in 1974 af­ter a brief courtship and had three chil­dren, daugh­ter Lizi­we and sons Liyan­da and Siyavuya.

The fam­i­ly em­i­grat­ed to Botswana in 1990 and even­tu­al­ly set­tled in Capetown, South Africa when Mar­cus was ap­point­ed prin­ci­pal and vice-chan­cel­lor of the Wal­ter Sisu­lu Uni­ver­si­ty.

Be­fore she left T&T, Bal­in­tu­lo pur­chased a grand pi­ano from Queen’s Hall which she took with her to South Africa.

This pi­ano served her in her pri­vate teach­ing ca­pac­i­ty out­side of her teach­ing pro­fes­sion at var­i­ous schools.

Her last vis­it to T&T was in 2018. Bal­in­tu­lo’s fu­ner­al ser­vice took place in South Africa last Fri­day with Massy All Stars pan mu­sic, ac­com­pa­ny­ing her en­try to the church and her ex­it.

She is sur­vived by her three chil­dren, six grand­chil­dren, sib­lings Amory, Ains­ley and June, as well as her ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly and long-stand­ing friends in T&T and Capetown.


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