For Ra­hel Moore, step­ping back on­to the con­cert stage is about more than per­form­ing.

The Trinida­di­an lyric so­pra­no will re­turn to the stage on Sat­ur­day for Sacrae: An Evening of Sa­cred and Spir­i­tu­al Mu­sic, a recital shaped by re­mem­brance, faith and a deeply per­son­al jour­ney back to mu­sic.

Moore will be joined by pi­anist Alan Coop­er and guest en­sem­ble Bravu­ra Arts at All Saints An­gli­can Church, Mar­li Street, Port-of-Spain, from 6 pm.

“Sacrae is, for me, a resur­gence to the per­for­mance stage af­ter a dif­fi­cult tran­si­tion, an ode to my moth­er, An­gela Moore, whose un­wa­ver­ing sup­port and en­cour­age­ment shaped my jour­ney as an artist, and an of­fer­ing to God,” Moore said.

Her moth­er, An­gela, who died in 2020, was a no­table singer with the Mar­i­onettes Chorale.

The Au­gust 8 recital car­ries par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance for Moore, who has spent much of her ca­reer per­form­ing opera and con­cert reper­toire in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Eu­rope, the Unit­ed King­dom and the Unit­ed States.

A Trinidad and To­ba­go lyric so­pra­no, Moore holds a Mas­ter of Mu­sic in Ad­vanced Vo­cal Per­for­mance (Opera Path) from the Roy­al Col­lege of Mu­sic, Lon­don, and a Bach­e­lor of Mu­sic in Clas­si­cal Voice from the Man­hat­tan School of Mu­sic, New York.

Her op­er­at­ic roles have in­clud­ed Pam­i­na in Mozart’s Die Za­uber­flöte, Muset­ta in Puc­ci­ni’s La Bo­hème and Servil­ia in Mozart’s La Clemen­za di Tito.

Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Moore was award­ed sec­ond place in the Opera Ebony Ben­jamin Matthews Vo­cal Com­pe­ti­tion in 2021, recog­nis­ing her artistry and vo­cal ex­cel­lence.

Her work ex­tends be­yond the con­cert and opera stage. Moore is al­so a voice teacher and vo­cal coach, serv­ing as Ad­junct Lec­tur­er in Voice at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean while main­tain­ing a pri­vate stu­dio where she men­tors the next gen­er­a­tion of singers.

For Sacrae, she will be ac­com­pa­nied by Alan Coop­er, a pi­anist whose own ca­reer has been close­ly tied to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s clas­si­cal mu­sic com­mu­ni­ty.

Over more than two decades, Coop­er has es­tab­lished him­self as a soloist, col­lab­o­ra­tive pi­anist and ad­vo­cate for mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence in Trinidad and To­ba­go and across the Caribbean.

His mu­si­cal ed­u­ca­tion be­gan at the age of nine at the Ce­leste School of Mu­sic. He quick­ly dis­tin­guished him­self at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, earn­ing nu­mer­ous first-place awards un­der in­ter­na­tion­al ad­ju­di­ca­tors.

By the age of 21, Coop­er had re­tired from com­pe­ti­tion as one of the Fes­ti­val’s most dec­o­rat­ed pi­anists. He re­ceived a life­time award for de­liv­er­ing out­stand­ing pi­ano recitals across six con­sec­u­tive edi­tions.

His work as a col­lab­o­ra­tive pi­anist has brought him along­side lead­ing Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al vo­cal­ists, in­clud­ing Jea­nine De Bique, Anne Fridal, Na­talia Dop­well and Moore her­self.

He has per­formed in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Bar­ba­dos, Cos­ta Ri­ca and Spain, while al­so work­ing with lo­cal en­sem­bles in­clud­ing the Mar­i­onettes Chorale, The Ly­di­an Singers, The South­er­naires and The Di­a­mond Chorale.

For Coop­er, how­ev­er, the mo­ti­va­tion be­hind Sacrae is un­com­pli­cat­ed.

“The rea­son for Sacrae is sim­ply the joy of cre­at­ing mu­sic and up­lift­ing the spir­it; some­thing we all need,” he said.

That idea of mu­sic as a means of lift­ing the spir­it is al­so re­flect­ed in the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Bravu­ra Arts.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go per­form­ing arts ini­tia­tive will join Moore and Coop­er as guest artists for the con­cert. Found­ed in 2014 by a col­lec­tive of trained lo­cal per­form­ers, Bravu­ra Arts has de­vel­oped in­to a reg­is­tered non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion fo­cused on mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence, emerg­ing artists and com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tion through the per­form­ing arts.

Its name, bravu­ra, speaks to the bold­ness, skill, spir­it and dex­ter­i­ty as­so­ci­at­ed with ex­cep­tion­al artis­tic per­for­mance.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion works un­der the prin­ci­ples of Spir­it, Abil­i­ty and In­tegri­ty, pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for mu­si­cians while sup­port­ing ed­u­ca­tion, men­tor­ship and the de­vel­op­ment of young artists.

It al­so us­es mu­sic as a means of reach­ing com­mu­ni­ties through out­reach ini­tia­tives, re­flect­ing a broad­er be­lief in the ca­pac­i­ty of the per­form­ing arts to con­nect and heal.

Those ideas sit com­fort­ably with­in the in­ten­tion be­hind Sacrae, where sa­cred works and spir­i­tu­al mu­sic pro­vide the frame­work for an evening that is as much per­son­al re­flec­tion as mu­si­cal per­for­mance.

For Moore, the re­turn to the stage is in­sep­a­ra­ble from the mem­o­ry of her moth­er and the en­cour­age­ment that helped shape her ca­reer.

For Coop­er, it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to make mu­sic that can bring peo­ple to­geth­er.

And for the au­di­ence, the evening promis­es a chance to step away from the noise of every­day life and spend some time with mu­sic, mem­o­ry and re­flec­tion.

At its heart, Sacrae is about what mu­sic can car­ry across time: the mem­o­ry of those who have in­flu­enced us, the faith that sus­tains us and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of find­ing re­new­al through the sim­ple act of lis­ten­ing.

The con­cert takes place on Sat­ur­day, Au­gust 8, at 6 pm at All Saints An­gli­can Church, Mar­li Street, Port-of-Spain.

Tick­ets are avail­able at Bo Bar!sta, Movi­eTowne; the All Saints An­gli­can Church of­fice; and Cher-Mere Spa, Trinci­ty Mall.