The Heroes Foundation welcomes son of the soil, maestro Kwame Ryan who visits Trinidad from September 28 to October 3, as he helps launch the Foundation's Musical Mentorship Programme. This, the latest of the Foundation's Youth-centered Programmes begins in November, initially as a workshop for string musicians. Kwame is presently the Musical and Artistic Director of Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine (ONBA), France. He grew up in Maracas Valley, St Joseph and attended University School, St Augustine and later Fatima College. Auditions for students who wish to participate in the November workshops will take place on September 29 at the Department of Creative and Festival Arts, Gordon Street, St Augustine. The second and third round of auditions will be held on September 30 at Court Street Ensemble, San Fernando at 10 am and UTT's Napa Campus, Port-of-Spain from 2 pm.
The workshop, to be held on November 9 and 10, will be free to the successful participants and spectators. The finale will be a performance by participants at the Foundation's 10th anniversary concert on November 11 at Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain.
The concert is under the patronage of His Excellency President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The musical collective performing at the concert will also comprise seasoned European musicians, world-class UTT music professors, all under Kwame's baton. The Heroes Foundation would like to offer our young musicians an opportunity to inspire and transform their talent to creative excellence.
Chairman and Founder of the Foundation, Philip Julien describes this year's programme as "the beginning of a music education and mentoring initiative which will be guided by 'one of our own', who happens to also be one of the best in the European music business... With the support of our sponsors we are happy to make a contribution to the development of T&T's youth using the classical music genre." Over the past ten years, the Heroes Foundation has enabled a cycle of transformation in T&T youth to become a generation of selfless heroes. It has achieved this through its Mentorship Programme (patterned after the worldwide Big Brothers Big Sisters initiative); its Youth Development Programme which is at eleven secondary schools throughout Trinidad, and enrolls 300 new students and its Sequential Arts offerings-the latest of which focused on Child Abuse Awareness.
Concert Tickets are available at The Heroes Foundation (www.theheroesfoundation.com), 52 Luis Street, Woodbrook (tel. 628-0619 and 622-9255) and at Alliance Française de Trinite-et-Tobago, 17 Alcazar Street, St Clair (tel. 622-6119 and 622-6728).