One of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most dis­tin­guished vo­cal­ists, Char­maine Forde, steps bold­ly back in­to cen­tre stage this De­cem­ber with a tril­o­gy of con­certs ho­n­our­ing more than four decades of mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence. Pro­duced by cul­tur­al cu­ra­tor Richard Young, the se­ries of­fers an in­ti­mate, pow­er­ful en­counter with a Caribbean icon whose artistry con­tin­ues to tran­scend trends, bor­ders, and gen­er­a­tions.

Af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as “Cham­pagne Char­maine” for her ef­fer­ves­cent tone and vel­vety smooth de­liv­ery, Forde has long been cel­e­brat­ed as a vo­cal styl­ist in the lin­eage of Nan­cy Wil­son, Na­tal­ie Cole, and Cha­ka Khan.

At the age of 11, she re­ceived a stand­ing ova­tion at Trin­i­ty Church for singing “Hear Oh Lord” which was writ­ten by Amer­i­can so­cial jus­tice ad­vo­cate and at-the-time Ro­man Catholic sem­i­nar­i­an, Ray Repp (1942-2020).

Then came her un­for­get­table break­out on the Scout­ing for Tal­ent tele­vi­sion se­ries. From there, she carved an ex­tra­or­di­nary ca­reer marked by in­ter­na­tion­al tours, club res­i­den­cies, fes­ti­val stages, and stu­dio record­ings where her jazz-sculpt­ed tech­nique con­sis­tent­ly shone.

Her work with jazz gui­tarist Michael Booth­man re­sult­ed in a cov­er of “What You Won’t Do For Love”, which was a lo­cal hit.

Forde al­so worked with Carl Ja­cobs, who co-wrote an­oth­er suc­cess­ful sin­gle for her, “Wait­ing For Love”. She al­so did ex­ten­sive work with Le­ston Paul. Then there were the spe­cials on the orig­i­nal Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT), in­clud­ing the hit “A Touch of Class”. Forde im­mi­grat­ed to Flori­da, USA, in the mid-1980s where she con­tin­ued to per­form and work in the broad­cast are­na.

She has now re­turned to T&T with her dy­nam­ic range and im­pres­sive soul-jazz vo­cal styling.

Fresh off a mag­net­ic per­for­mance at Jazz Artists on the Greens, Forde ush­ers in the hol­i­day sea­son—at the cru­cial in­ter­sec­tion of Christ­mas and Car­ni­val—with three high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed shows that promise warmth, nos­tal­gia, and im­pec­ca­ble mu­si­cian­ship.

She will be joined by an ex­cep­tion­al ros­ter of guest per­form­ers: the dy­nam­ic Ter­ri Lyons, the soul­ful Kris­son Joseph, and parang pow­er­house Ali­cia Jages­sar. To­geth­er, they are set to de­liv­er a cu­rat­ed, genre-blend­ing ex­pe­ri­ence that moves seam­less­ly through jazz, soul, funk, so­ca, ca­lyp­so, and parang. The re­sult is a rich mu­si­cal ta­pes­try—equal parts cel­e­bra­tion, re­flec­tion, and tri­umphant re­turn.

On De­cem­ber 5 and 6 at Café Blue (8 pm), Forde head­lines two un­for­get­table nights of world-class en­ter­tain­ment along­side Ter­ri Lyons and Kris­son Joseph. Then, on De­cem­ber 7, at Richard Young’s The Guild TT at the Shoppes of Mar­aval, she joins forces with parang lu­mi­nary Ali­cia Jages­sar for a fes­tive show­case wel­com­ing the Christ­mas sea­son with pas­sion and flair.

For lovers of pre­mi­um, world-class tal­ent, these con­certs promise a rare, not-to-be-missed recital of show­stop­ping per­for­mances—an of­fer­ing of lega­cy at its finest.

This De­cem­ber, Char­maine Forde isn’t just re­turn­ing. She is re­mind­ing the Caribbean why her voice re­mains one of our great­est trea­sures.