Mary Cuffy

Raised in Riv­er Es­tate, Diego Mar­tin, vi­o­lin­ist Mar­cus Nel­son, known pro­fes­sion­al­ly as Mar­quis Musiq, has trans­formed mod­est be­gin­nings in­to an in­ter­na­tion­al per­form­ing ca­reer.

Mar­cus Nel­son is a dis­tin­guished vi­o­lin­ist and mu­sic ed­u­ca­tor whose ca­reer spans near­ly 15 years of per­for­mance and teach­ing. His jour­ney from hum­ble be­gin­nings in Diego Mar­tin to in­ter­na­tion­al stages re­flects a deep com­mit­ment to mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence, dis­ci­pline, and artis­tic growth.

“My mu­si­cal jour­ney start­ed when my grand­par­ents would take me to church,” Nel­son re­called. “I nev­er ful­ly un­der­stood what I was hear­ing, but I knew some­thing was call­ing me.” At the age of 12, his fam­i­ly re­lo­cat­ed from Diego Mar­tin to cen­tral Cunu­pia, where his moth­er en­rolled him at the Glo­ria Bar­ry Mu­sic School to study the vi­o­lin, mark­ing the start of his for­mal mu­si­cal train­ing.

While at­tend­ing Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Nel­son im­mersed him­self in mu­sic, of­ten re­main­ing af­ter school with friends to prac­tise the vi­o­lin, pi­ano, gui­tar, and steel­pan. This pe­ri­od of ex­plo­ration and dis­ci­pline helped shape his ver­sa­til­i­ty and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for mul­ti­ple mu­si­cal tra­di­tions.

Nel­son lat­er earned a Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts in Mu­sic from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), study­ing un­der the men­tor­ship of world-renowned vi­o­lin­ist Si­mon Brown. He cred­its UTT’s Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts with re­fin­ing his tech­ni­cal foun­da­tion and artis­tic vi­sion.

“UTT tru­ly mould­ed and trans­formed my tal­ent,” he said. “I was ex­posed to in­spir­ing and high­ly mo­ti­vat­ed mu­si­cal ed­u­ca­tors who pushed me to grow.”

Over the years, Nel­son, per­form­ing un­der the stage name Mar­quis Musiq, has de­vel­oped a dis­tinc­tive style that blends gospel, con­tem­po­rary, and clas­si­cal in­flu­ences, al­low­ing him to con­nect with di­verse au­di­ences while main­tain­ing tech­ni­cal ex­cel­lence.

In 2023, he em­braced what he de­scribed as a once-in-a-life­time op­por­tu­ni­ty by join­ing the lux­u­ry cruise lin­er Princess Cruis­es as a pro­duc­tion as­sis­tant. His mu­si­cal tal­ent soon caught the at­ten­tion of man­age­ment.

“One day, my man­ag­er saw me prac­tis­ing my vi­o­lin back­stage and asked if I could au­di­tion as a vi­o­lin­ist for their up­com­ing pro­duc­tion show, Bra­vo,” Nel­son ex­plained. “I was giv­en the mu­sic one day and had to au­di­tion with the or­ches­tra the next day.”

He was suc­cess­ful and be­came part of the pro­duc­tion cast, per­form­ing across mul­ti­ple in­ter­na­tion­al des­ti­na­tions, in­clud­ing Alas­ka, Van­cou­ver, Hawaii, and Mex­i­co. “They be­came my home away from home,” he said.

Be­yond per­for­mance, Nel­son has made a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact as an ed­u­ca­tor. He is the founder of Mar­quis Musiq Acad­e­my, an in­sti­tu­tion ded­i­cat­ed to nur­tur­ing young tal­ent and pro­vid­ing struc­tured mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion ground­ed in dis­ci­pline, cre­ativ­i­ty, and con­fi­dence.

“Dur­ing my time work­ing on the cruise ship, I de­vel­oped a strong de­sire to teach what I had learned,” he said. “I be­lieve Trinidad and To­ba­go has so much to of­fer the world cul­tur­al­ly and so­cial­ly.”

Through the acad­e­my, Nel­son em­pha­sis­es mu­si­cal lit­er­a­cy and holis­tic de­vel­op­ment, guid­ing stu­dents at var­i­ous stages of their mu­si­cal jour­neys. The in­sti­tu­tion re­cent­ly cel­e­brat­ed the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of its first two pub­lic recitals, Echoes of Glo­ry and Let There Be Mu­sic 2025.

Nel­son’s pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence al­so in­cludes per­for­mances and col­lab­o­ra­tions with or­gan­i­sa­tions such as Princess Cruis­es, Is­land Fi­nance, the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, Na­tion­al Flour Mills, and TSTT, al­low­ing him to bring both clas­si­cal and con­tem­po­rary vi­o­lin per­for­mance to au­di­ences lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

As a per­former, men­tor, and cul­tur­al am­bas­sador, Mar­cus Nel­son, Mar­quis Musiq, con­tin­ues to con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to the artis­tic land­scape, in­spir­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of mu­si­cians to pur­sue ex­cel­lence with pur­pose and pas­sion.