Wes­ley Gib­bings

Un­der the di­rec­tion of mae­stro/founder Ken­neth Listhrop - who shared con­duct­ing du­ties with young Sameer Al­ladin - the T&T Youth Phil­har­mon­ic (TTYP) skil­ful­ly ex­e­cut­ed a chal­leng­ing reper­toire of sym­phon­ic dances and hymn clas­sics at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) on Ju­ly 30.

Bear­ing a ban­ner of ‘Great Sym­phon­ic Dances – Great Hymn Clas­sics’ at its 20th an­nu­al work­shop con­cert, the TTYP joined with the Eu­an­ge­lion Singers and Band for an evening of cap­ti­vat­ing per­for­mances de­liv­ered by a com­ple­ment of over 100 ju­nior, in­ter­me­di­ate, and ad­vanced play­ers.

The pro­gramme opened with a com­bined group in­clud­ing some of the ju­nior mem­bers play­ing Han­del’s dreamy Sara­bande, fol­lowed by a play­ful in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Coun­try Gar­dens (Hand­ker­chief Dance), Grieg’s Nor­we­gian Dance, and Pizzi­ca­to Pol­ka by Jo­hann and Josef Strauss.

Al­ladin, as guest con­duc­tor, led Part 1 of the pro­ceed­ings from the podi­um with the Ad­vanced Or­ches­tra. Dur­ing this seg­ment, the au­di­ence was treat­ed to near flaw­less ren­di­tions of dance clas­sics by Jo­hannes Brahms and An­toni Dvo­rak, and 20th Cen­tu­ry fare from Aram Ilyich Khacha­turi­an, the late So­vi­et/Ar­men­ian com­pos­er.

Com­ing through the ranks as a vi­o­lin­ist and ju­nior con­duc­tor at TTYP and pro­ceed­ing to mu­sic stud­ies at the Mas­ter’s lev­el in the UK, it was Al­ladin’s first time shar­ing the helm, at this lev­el with his long­stand­ing teacher and men­tor be­fore a packed au­di­to­ri­um.

“I was com­plete­ly blown away by the en­er­gy and in­tense fo­cus on the stage,” he lat­er told T&T Guardian. “We con­nect­ed in­cred­i­bly well, with the or­ches­tra epit­o­mis­ing the idea of the whole be­ing greater than the sum of its parts.”

“I even paused for a mo­ment be­tween pieces, looked at them, and qui­et­ly said, ‘wow!’ It was tru­ly a glo­ri­ous mo­ment that reaf­firmed to me how amaz­ing mu­sic is and how lucky we are to have this or­ches­tra in our coun­try,” said Al­ladin who is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a PhD in Psy­chol­o­gy/Neu­ro­science in Bris­tol.

The im­por­tance of the group to the na­tion­al mu­sic scene was lat­er am­pli­fied by his long­stand­ing teacher/men­tor, Listhrop, who is re­spon­si­ble for a young gen­er­a­tion of lo­cal mu­si­cians ground­ed in the clas­sics but now en­gaged in wide va­ri­ety of gen­res play­ing dif­fer­ent roles.

Listhrop traced the his­to­ry of the or­ches­tra from its ear­ly days as the St Au­gus­tine Cham­ber Or­ches­tra ex­pand­ing from a group dom­i­nat­ed by strings to the ad­di­tion of wood­wind, brass, and per­cus­sion in­stru­ments. Its co­horts now con­tribute to mu­si­cal per­for­mance and mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion in T&T and be­yond. These in­clude dou­ble bassist Dr Harley Robin­son, who played on the evening.

The TTYP founder/leader said there was ev­i­dence to sup­port a com­mit­ment to gen­er­a­tional tran­si­tion. He cit­ed the achieve­ments of Al­addin and Robin­son, and the growth of oth­er young mu­si­cians mak­ing their way in the world of mu­sic in T&T and over­seas.

Listhrop wield­ed the ba­ton for Part 2 of the pro­gramme to cov­er en­er­getic mu­si­cal ground with 10 vo­cal hymn clas­sics ren­dered by the Eu­an­ge­lion Singers. The more knowl­edge­able on such mat­ters felt free to sing along, as did Listhrop from the con­duc­tor’s podi­um and while on the pi­ano.

This sec­tion opened with The Lord in Zion Reigneth and end­ed with Come Thou Fount of Every Bless­ing.

On an evening packed with com­pet­ing, sea­son­al events, the TTYP de­liv­ered on its promise of a high-qual­i­ty event that cov­ered vast clas­si­cal and hym­nic ter­rain. It was an evening of mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence.