Si­mon Lee

When Jea­nine De Bique gave her de­but recital at New York's Merkin Con­cert Hall in 2009, one crit­ic not­ed: "From the mo­ment she stepped on stage it was ap­par­ent to the large au­di­ence that she has gen­uine star qual­i­ty. She al­so has a voice of ex­cep­tion­al beau­ty." Artist-in-res­i­dence with Switzer­land's Basle Opera 2009-10 and a mem­ber of the Vi­en­na Sate Opera House last sea­son (Gi­anet­ta in L'elisir d'amore, Bar­ba­ri­na in Le Nozze di Fi­garo, Kate Pinker­ton in Madama But­ter­fly, Eine Modis­tin in Der Rosenkava­lier, and Ada in Wag­n­er's Die Feen) she al­so toured Rus­sia, Poland and Greece with the Russ­ian Phil­har­mon­ic as Clara in Por­gy and Bess. Her re­cent per­for­mance at the Young Con­cert Artists Se­ries at Merkin Hall won the fol­low­ing ac­co­lade: "This gift­ed young per­former sang with ex­cep­tion­al ex­pres­sive­ness...(she) cap­ti­vat­ed the au­di­ence with seem­ing­ly ef­fort­less vo­cal flex­i­bil­i­ty, com­mand­ing stage pres­ence and sen­si­tive in­ter­pre­ta­tion...( she) has a bite to her sound that re­calls the great Kiri Te Kanawa."

Out­side T&T's rel­a­tive­ly small clas­si­cal mu­sic/opera com­mu­ni­ty, De Bique re­mains large­ly un­sung at home, but that's be­cause she's spent the last decade away, work­ing to­wards and es­tab­lish­ing the kind of in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion we see glimpses of in the re­view ex­cerpts quot­ed above. To be com­pared with the great New Zealand so­pra­no Kiri Te Kanawa while still in her (very) ear­ly 30s is an ex­cep­tion­al en­dorse­ment, equiv­a­lent in the lit­er­ary field to putting a young po­et in the class of Derek Wal­cott. On a fly­ing vis­it home last month De Bique took time out be­fore the start of her per­for­mance sched­ule (which runs un­in­ter­rupt­ed in­to 2014) to talk with the T&T Guardian. Her mo­ti­va­tion was to share her for­ma­tive ex­pe­ri­ences, both as an ac­knowl­edge­ment to all those in Trinidad who nur­tured and sup­port­ed her tal­ent and am­bi­tion, and al­so as an in­spi­ra­tion to oth­er young women con­sid­er­ing a ca­reer in clas­si­cal mu­sic. Raised in San Fer­nan­do and then St Au­gus­tine, De Bique was ex­posed to a wide range of mu­sic from ear­ly. Be­sides the clas­sic rock that her chem­i­cal en­gi­neer fa­ther and sis­ters lis­tened to, there was her singing grand­moth­er and a moth­er who taught gui­tar and pi­ano. Be­fore she was ten she'd learnt the Lit­tle Mer­maid by heart, along with Bar­bara Streisand's Broad­way al­bum and the Phan­tom of the Opera, en­act­ing her own nar­ra­tive be­tween songs.

Her pri­ma­ry school choir in­tro­duced her to ca­lyp­so, folk and clas­si­cal songs and at ten she was crowned school "Ca­lyp­so Queen" singing her moth­er's com­po­si­tion: "We should build this coun­try back/Find some hope in the place/And make it fit for the hu­man race." Her for­ay in­to the ca­lyp­so are­na end­ed with the San Fer­nan­do Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion and sub­se­quent­ly her lean­ing to clas­si­cal mu­sic was chan­nelled in­to pi­ano (cul­mi­nat­ing in the high­est lev­el of the RSM Per­former's Cer­tifi­cate) and singing. Be­sides African, con­tem­po­rary dance and bal­let lessons, watch­ing her old­er sis­ters per­form in mu­si­cals with Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege and St Joseph's Con­vent made her ea­ger to pass the Com­mon En­trance ex­am "just so I could be a part of that (St Joseph's Con­vent, San Fer­nan­do) choir." When the fam­i­ly re­lo­cat­ed up north and she trans­ferred to St Joseph's Con­vent Port-of-Spain, her po­ten­tial was recog­nised and en­cour­aged by both Michelle Var­ley and June Nathaniel, two lead­ing lights of T&T clas­si­cal mu­sic who've been in­stru­men­tal in shap­ing and launch­ing new artistes. They told her she was ca­pa­ble of con­ser­va­to­ry stud­ies in ei­ther pi­ano or voice but "I fig­ured I loved to act and I couldn't do that be­hind a key­board"–so opera beck­oned.

Af­ter com­plet­ing A-lev­els in Span­ish and Eu­ro­pean his­to­ry and con­sid­er­ing a ca­reer as a psy­chol­o­gist or lawyer she con­clud­ed, "I didn't love the idea of it." Her com­bined in­ter­ests in lan­guages and his­to­ry "con­nect­ed with what I was learn­ing in mu­sic his­to­ry" and she came to terms with the fact that she'd "fi­nal­ly found a chal­lenge in life...which was both easy and hard." Easy, be­cause of her love of mu­sic and per­for­mance, but hard be­cause of the "big fish small pond" syn­drome and her ac­cep­tance that "I had to work ex­tra hard to mas­ter my craft"–which would mean study­ing abroad. She suc­cess­ful­ly au­di­tioned for a place at the Man­hat­tan School of Mu­sic (MSM) but spent two years work­ing in a TSTT call cen­tre and giv­ing fundrais­ing con­certs to pay for her stud­ies. When it was time for the Big Ap­ple she got anx­ious and her moth­er had to drag her off the plane in New York. "I was scared, all of it's scary," she re­calls–not least be­ing on­ly one of four black women and the on­ly Caribbean stu­dent in her class of 30. From 2002-9 she stud­ied at MSM com­plet­ing her bach­e­lor's, mas­ter's and a pro­fes­sion­al stud­ies cer­tifi­cate and pick­ing up awards (Hugo Ross Award for a singer with un­usu­al promise, Man­hat­tan School of Mu­sic, 2006) on the way. In the year of her grad­u­a­tion she be­gan stak­ing a claim to in­ter­na­tion­al fame, win­ning two pres­ti­gious prizes (first in the Young Con­cert Artists In­ter­na­tion­al Com­pe­ti­tion 2009, Prize Win­ner of the Ger­da Liss­ner In­ter­na­tion­al Vo­cal Com­pe­ti­tion, 2009).

Now that she's find­ing her place in the high­ly com­pet­i­tive world of opera and clas­si­cal song, she takes pride in "putting T&T on the map" and such mile­stones as be­ing the first black per­former with the Vi­en­na State Opera House. She's al­so keen to share her suc­cess with, and en­cour­age oth­er young black per­form­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly at home, where opera can still be per­ceived as ei­ther alien or in­ac­ces­si­ble. "It's not un­touch­able for black peo­ple. It's good for kids and young peo­ple; there's lots of his­to­ry (in­volved) which aids (life) learn­ing. Clas­si­cal mu­sic doesn't in­voke vi­o­lence like Hip Hop, it brings peo­ple to­geth­er and en­hances holis­tic de­vel­op­ment as op­posed to the ex­ploita­tive sex pushed in some reg­gae and so­ca." While she loves her ca­lyp­so, so­ca and Car­ni­val as much as any Tri­ni to de Bone, she has a pow­er­ful mes­sage for the young women of T&T: "These days both men and women sing songs in­struct­ing women to dance in ways that are de­grad­ing and at the same time it can be con­fused with the feel­ing of be­ing free and in­de­pen­dent. "The oth­er thing is that this can be a mis­per­cep­tion caus­ing per­sons to let down their guards with re­sult­ing in­ci­dents of rape, mur­der, teenage preg­nan­cy and Aids–all of which have in­creased over the years. "I want to in­spire women and young girls to show them that there are more re­ward­ing ways to earn re­spect. Singing clas­si­cal mu­sic has shaped me as a young woman. I want to con­tin­ue to use my voice to pro­mote peace amongst young peo­ple."