Last Sun­day, the Sig­nal Hill Alum­ni Choir’s (SHAC) fi­nal per­for­mance in the 40th an­niver­sary con­cert se­ries 2064: A Mu­si­cal Odyssey was staged at To­ba­go’s Shaw Park Com­plex to a large gath­er­ing of en­thu­si­as­tic pa­trons.

Un­der Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s pa­tron­age and in the pres­ence of first gen­tle­man Ker­wyn Gar­cia, Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, oth­er as­sem­bly­men, coun­cil­lors, dig­ni­taries, and many To­bag­o­ni­ans who braved the down­pours, the choir played to its home crowd. Sim­i­lar to all shows, the To­ba­go per­for­mance fea­tured SHAC do­ing favourites in the gen­res of gospel, folk, African and World Mu­sic, and so­ca/ca­lyp­so.

Joined by a to­tal of six guest artistes, the show was a com­pact pro­duc­tion with sus­tained highs from start to end. SHAC be­gan with a ren­di­tion of Swing Down Sweet Char­i­ot. And as ex­pect­ed, the choralog­ra­phy for which they are best known was cap­ti­vat­ing from the first note. It was a fit­ting trib­ute too, as artis­tic di­rec­tor John Arnold in­tro­duced this seg­ment, men­tion­ing that Swing Down Sweet Char­i­ot was the first win­ning song ever per­formed by the group.

And in a spe­cial throw­back, the choir was joined by some of the orig­i­nal past mem­bers. The soul­ful Stephanie Joseph ap­peared as the first guest per­former, fol­lowed by the Mu­sic Am­a­teurs Choir and then Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School, de­liv­er­ing an out­stand­ing per­for­mance of Come Leh We Go in the first half.

Af­ter the in­ter­mis­sion, the au­di­ence was treat­ed to the smooth vo­cals of Lynette Louis, the en­er­gy of Black Rock’s pride, pan­nist Jaime Ram­sey, and the col­lab­o­ra­tion of the evening, SHAC and Rod­ney “Ben­jai” Le Blanc. Rep­re­sent­ing the “Red, White and Black”, Ben­jai, backed by the choir, gave us his 2011 mega-hit I’m a Tri­ni with its in­fec­tious rhythms and apt de­scrip­tors of things that tru­ly rep­re­sent our unique­ness.

Al­ways a cel­e­bra­tion of our iden­ti­ty as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, one could feel the spirit­ed­ness of the pa­trons in that joy spell Ben­jai casts on us. But it is the ren­di­tion of his 2015 hit “Phe­nom­e­nal” with the SHAC’s har­monies and choralog­ra­phy that pos­si­bly elicit­ed the most “feels” that evening. In a slowed ver­sion, Ben­jai and SHAC blend­ed beau­ti­ful­ly to give us the bel­ly-stir­ring “Once the mu­sic hit meh veins, So much pow­ers ah cyah ex­plain” end­ing pow­er­ful­ly in a capel­la mode.

This con­cert se­ries, which be­gan three week­ends be­fore at Na­pari­ma Bowl (Sep­tem­ber 21), fea­tured all T&T’s choirs that are over 40 years old as guest per­form­ers.

Arnold ex­plained that SHAC’s ac­com­plish­ment of reach­ing its for­ti­eth year mir­rors the work of many oth­ers be­fore, and in a spir­it of homage and com­mu­ni­ty, the se­ries fea­tured the South­er­naires Choir, The Ly­di­ans, The Love Move­ment Choir, and The Mar­i­onettes in the three Trinidad shows. Mu­sic Am­a­teurs, the old­est of all choral groups (over 60 years), brought up the rear with an un­de­ni­ably pow­er­ful ren­di­tion of their four choic­es: As Long as I Have Mu­sic (Don Be­sig and Nan­cy Price), Louis Arm­strong’s What a Won­der­ful World, Scott and Rus­sell’s He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Broth­er, and a de­light­ful arrange­ment of Ras Shorty I’s Watch Out My Chil­dren.

In his vote of thanks, Arnold point­ed to the ho­n­our of hav­ing the Pres­i­dent as pa­tron of the show. He recog­nised choir mem­bers, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Georgina “Gidge” Pe­terkin and Neave McKen­zie, who to­geth­er are re­spon­si­ble for SHAC’s cos­tum­ing through the years.

He re­served spe­cial thanks and com­men­da­tion for Fabi­an Smart for all the shows’ tech­ni­cal de­tails and Car­o­line Rav­el­lo for me­dia and mar­ket­ing out­put for the year-long cel­e­bra­tion.

The show, host­ed by Avian Parks, end­ed like all oth­ers with the choir singing and danc­ing in­to the au­di­to­ri­um, greet­ing and thank­ing pa­trons for the strains of Mi­cal Te­ja’s DNA. SHAC ends its year-long cel­e­bra­tion in No­vem­ber with an award cer­e­mo­ny and gala event in To­ba­go.