The fourth an­nu­al bird­song ben­e­fit con­cert will be held at 7 pm on June 22 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain.

For this edi­tion ti­tled, The Chick­ens Are Com­ing Home to Roost, the fea­tured per­for­mances are vo­cal­ist Ny­ol Man­swell and pan soloist Der­ri­anne Dyett, the first two ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the bird­song Schol­ar­ship Pro­gramme.

This fund was es­tab­lished in 2010 to fi­nance ter­tiary stud­ies for grad­u­ates of the band's unique com­mu­ni­ty-based mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme. Both these young per­form­ers came through the ranks of the bird­song Mu­sic Acad­e­my which now pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive year-round pro­gramme of ac­tiv­i­ties.

The pro­gramme ex­pos­es par­tic­i­pants to a struc­tured learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence fo­cus­ing on mu­sic lit­er­a­cy, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment, char­ac­ter-build­ing as well as op­por­tu­ni­ties for par­tic­i­pants to per­form with and learn from a core of ex­pe­ri­enced and tal­ent­ed mu­si­cians. Two hun­dred stu­dents are cur­rent­ly reg­is­tered in the Sat­ur­day pro­gramme and the re­cent­ly in­au­gu­rat­ed Af­ter School Pro­gramme, a re­lease from bird­song said.

Man­swell, who head­lined the first edi­tion of the ben­e­fit con­cert in 2011, is com­plet­ing his Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic Bach­e­lor's de­gree pro­gramme. Man­swell has won the 2014 Stars of To­mor­row con­test, placed sec­ond in the an­nu­al Young Kings com­pe­ti­tion and fea­tured at this year's Jazz Artists on the Green con­cert. He has mas­tered a broad reper­toire rang­ing from ca­lyp­so to jazz, from gospel to R&B and a wide va­ri­ety of mu­si­cal gen­res. A pro­lif­ic com­pos­er, this charis­mat­ic per­former is look­ing for­ward to the re­lease of his de­but al­bum with­in the next year.

A reg­u­lar soloist in the bird­song Small En­sem­ble, this 2014 Ben­e­fit Con­cert will be Dyett's lo­cal com­ing-out par­ty as she steps in­to the spot­light as a leader. She brings the deft touch of an Andy Nar­rell, in­formed by the in­ter­est­ing har­mon­ic di­rec­tions tak­en by a Rudy "Two Left" Smith. Com­bined with a rare mu­si­cal­i­ty and an eclec­tic playlist, Dyett's ini­ti­a­tion promis­es the un­veil­ing of a fresh and im­por­tant young artist to the pan pan­theon.

Un­der Richard Quar­less' mu­si­cal di­rec­tion, bird­song Steel Or­ches­tra opens the con­cert and will ex­plore a mu­si­cal path less trod­den by the steel­band. The pans will be aug­ment­ed by an in-house com­ple­ment of brass and wood­winds drawn from both stu­dents and fac­ul­ty and will ex­plore lo­cal, re­gion­al and Amer­i­ca song­books.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned and cel­e­brat­ed jazz pi­anist Raf Robert­son, who has played a sem­i­nal role in the evo­lu­tion of bird­song's mu­sic pro­gramme, will com­plete the evening's play­bill. In keep­ing with bird­song's fo­cus on young mu­si­cians, he will be sup­port­ed by a cast of ex­cit­ing young turks.

Show­time is at 7 pm and tick­ets are avail­able at the NA­PA Box Of­fice and the bird­song pa­n­yard at $200 each. For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, call 678-4657 or 682-9959.

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