Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

From church pews to cen­tre stage, Su­san­na Sur­jan is emerg­ing as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most com­pelling new voic­es, her mu­sic shaped by faith, fam­i­ly and an un­shake­able de­sire to up­lift oth­ers. A singer, per­former, ed­u­ca­tor and ra­dio host, Sur­jan’s jour­ney is dri­ven not by fame but by pur­pose—and it is that sin­cer­i­ty which con­tin­ues to res­onate with grow­ing au­di­ences at home and abroad. For Sur­jan, mu­sic has nev­er been mere­ly a per­for­mance.

“Mu­sic has al­ways been a big part of who I am,” she says. “I find joy in con­nect­ing with my au­di­ence, and my main goal is to bring joy and light through mu­sic to those who need it the most.”

Draw­ing from per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences and chal­lenges, she de­liv­ers per­for­mances that feel in­ti­mate and au­then­tic, trans­form­ing songs in­to shared mo­ments of heal­ing and hope.

Her mu­si­cal jour­ney be­gan al­most as soon as she could reach the keys. At just four years old, Sur­jan learnt three chords on the key­board from her fa­ther —a sim­ple les­son that would chart the course for a life­time in mu­sic. Raised in the church as the daugh­ter of a pas­tor, she was of­ten called up­on to play so­lo pieces at cru­sades, con­certs, wed­dings and thanks­giv­ing ser­vices. Even then, the key­board proved to be on­ly the be­gin­ning.

At 11, Sur­jan was in­vit­ed to sing with the Sun­day School choir. Though hes­i­tant at first, she soon dis­cov­ered her nat­ur­al vo­cal abil­i­ty. En­cour­aged by her par­ents, she went on to sing spe­cials in church and, as a teenag­er, be­gan lead­ing wor­ship.

“The church was my train­ing ground,” she re­flects. “I will al­ways be eter­nal­ly grate­ful.”

Word of her tal­ent spread quick­ly, bring­ing in­vi­ta­tions from oth­er church­es, youth camps, con­ven­tions and con­certs. Mu­sic, how­ev­er, re­mained a labour of love rather than a pro­fes­sion. Along­side her hus­band, she formed a band and even trav­elled to Guyana to per­form at a con­ven­tion.

“Mu­sic was nev­er a job for me,” she says. “I did it be­cause I loved it.”

A turn­ing point came dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. In a time of glob­al un­cer­tain­ty, mu­sic be­came a source of com­fort not on­ly for the Sur­jan house­hold but al­so for many oth­ers.

In 2019, The Sur­jan Fam­i­ly was born—a Face­book page fea­tur­ing Su­san­na, her hus­band and their three chil­dren singing to­geth­er. Their ren­di­tion of Michael Jack­son’s We Are the World went vi­ral, strik­ing a chord with view­ers who shared sto­ries of loss, re­silience and grat­i­tude.

Reg­u­lar live ses­sions fol­lowed, filled with clas­sic favourites that res­onat­ed across gen­er­a­tions. As the page grew, so did at­ten­tion on Sur­jan’s pow­er­ful voice. Videos of her ren­di­tions of Ce­line Dion and Whit­ney Hous­ton clas­sics drew wide­spread ad­mi­ra­tion, and soon re­quests be­gan pour­ing in for live per­for­mances. Un­fa­mil­iar with the work­ings of the in­dus­try, her hus­band—now her man­ag­er—would sim­ply re­ply, “Give us any­thing.”

That leap of faith marked the start of her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer. By 2021, Sur­jan was per­form­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly, and mu­sic pro­duc­ers be­gan reach­ing out. Among her most pop­u­lar record­ings are reg­gae-in­spired cov­ers of Justin Bieber’s Any­one and Jenn John­son’s Good­ness of God, both high­light­ing her ver­sa­til­i­ty and emo­tion­al depth.

Sur­jan’s reper­toire spans pop, dis­co, reg­gae, Latin pop, soft rock, gospel, R&B, bal­lads and clas­sic favourites. Song se­lec­tion, she says, is deeply in­tu­itive.

“On­ly when I con­nect with a song can I con­nect with my au­di­ence. I must feel every word that I sing.”

She has since tak­en an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant step — writ­ing and record­ing her own mu­sic. Her first orig­i­nal song is sched­uled for re­lease in ear­ly 2026, a mile­stone she de­scribes as both ex­cit­ing and hum­bling.

Like many emerg­ing artistes, Sur­jan ac­knowl­edges the chal­lenges of the in­dus­try, from main­tain­ing con­sis­ten­cy while re­main­ing au­then­tic to bal­anc­ing per­son­al life, work and cre­ativ­i­ty. Yet these chal­lenges have on­ly strength­ened her re­solve. Ground­ed in faith, she be­lieves her voice car­ries a pur­pose be­yond the stage.

That call­ing ex­tends to ra­dio, where she hosts One Day At a Time on 103.1 FM. The pro­gramme blends Chris­t­ian prin­ci­ples with re­al-life ex­pe­ri­ences, of­fer­ing en­cour­age­ment and prac­ti­cal guid­ance to lis­ten­ers from all walks of life.

“It caters to every­one, re­gard­less of re­li­gious be­liefs,” she ex­plains. “The goal is to help peo­ple nav­i­gate life grace­ful­ly and pur­pose­ful­ly.”

Fam­i­ly re­mains cen­tral to every­thing she does. “They are my foun­da­tion,” Sur­jan says. “Their be­lief in me gives me the mo­ti­va­tion to con­tin­ue, even on dif­fi­cult days.”

Among the songs most cher­ished by her au­di­ences is Show Me Heav­en, which she de­liv­ers with raw emo­tion and soar­ing vo­cals. For live­li­er crowds, Danc­ing Queen is a firm favourite, par­tic­u­lar­ly with women in the au­di­ence—mo­ments Sur­jan of­ten us­es to share words of en­cour­age­ment and af­fir­ma­tion.

Though her pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney is still un­fold­ing, Sur­jan has al­ready col­lab­o­rat­ed with sev­er­al tal­ent­ed artistes and mu­si­cians, ex­pe­ri­ences she cred­its with broad­en­ing her cre­ative hori­zons. Look­ing ahead, she is ea­ger to work with more singers, mu­si­cians and pro­duc­ers as she con­tin­ues to grow and ex­plore new sounds.

In every note she sings, Su­san­na Sur­jan car­ries her sto­ry—one of faith, re­silience and heart­felt con­nec­tion. And as her star con­tin­ues to rise, it is clear that her great­est suc­cess lies not on­ly in the ap­plause but al­so in the lives she touch­es along the way.