KALI­FA SARAH CLYNE

The St Joseph's Con­vent, Port-of-Spain choir will make his­to­ry for this coun­try and the Caribbean in June, when it be­comes the first choir from the re­gion to par­tic­i­pate in the World Choir Games in Riga, Latvia.

In or­der to make par­tic­i­pa­tion in the com­pe­ti­tion a re­al­i­ty, the Port-of-Spain school is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment, cor­po­rate cit­i­zens and mem­bers of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to as­sist in its goal of rais­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 mil­lion to cov­er the ex­pens­es for the trip.

A to­tal of 41 stu­dents, six chap­er­ones and two ac­com­pa­ny­ing mu­si­cians are ex­pect­ed to trav­el to Latvia, in east­ern Eu­rope.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the school at Pem­broke Street yes­ter­day, school prin­ci­pal An­na Pounder said the school had al­ready be­gun fundrais­ing events through par­ents.

The school will host a con­cert at Queen's Hall on March 31 to raise ad­di­tion­al funds.

With an es­ti­mat­ed bud­get of over $1 mil­lion, though, these events will on­ly make small dents, the prin­ci­pal said.

"Oth­er fundrais­ing events are be­ing or­gan­ised and spon­sor­ship will be wel­come," Pounder said.

This is the first time in the eight years of the com­pe­ti­tion that any choir from the re­gion has been in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate.

This will not be the first time the choir has par­tic­i­pat­ed in in­ter­na­tion­al fes­ti­vals or com­pe­ti­tions, hav­ing per­formed in Ger­many, Vi­en­na and Italy in the past.

In Latvia, the choir would be par­tic­i­pat­ing in three events, in­clud­ing a Cham­pi­ons con­cert.

"We had ini­tial­ly reg­is­tered for the open com­pe­ti­tion and we were ac­cept­ed, but we re­ceived an in­vi­ta­tion from the com­mit­tee lat­er invit­ing us to the Cham­pi­ons com­pe­ti­tion, based on the points we had amassed from our par­tic­i­pa­tion in oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al events," said vice prin­ci­pal Mar­itza Ram­phal.

"When we heard we had been ac­cept­ed we were jump­ing for joy."

Ram­phal, smil­ing proud­ly, said the op­por­tu­ni­ty was a great one for stu­dents, the school and the coun­try.

Stu­dents will dis­play na­tion­al flags and this coun­try's na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the pan, wear cos­tumes de­signed by Bri­an Mac­Far­lane and sing songs such as the Ganges and the Nile by ca­lyp­son­ian David Rud­der, Mag­ni­fi­cat by Pe­ter Telfer and Tri­ni by Rod­ney LeBlanc (Ben­jai).

"Our stu­dents do not take this ho­n­our light­ly. They have been re­hears­ing every week, twice a week. It's gru­elling prepa­ra­tion. This event is con­sid­ered the Olympics of choir singing." Ram­phal said. "With pride we will be rep­re­sent­ing the red, white and black."

Up­per Six stu­dent Ane­sha Ro­many, in an ad­dress to the me­dia, asked for sup­port for the choir.

"To be able to rep­re­sent your coun­try on a world stage gives you a sense of pride that few things can give you," she said. "We do not take it light­ly. We are rep­re­sent­ing home. That sense of na­tion­al pride, we should all have that pa­tri­o­tism in our hearts."