Ger­maine Wil­son will be the sixth and fi­nal song­bird for 2009 in the se­ries SONG­BIRDS.live pro­duced by Pro­duc­tion One Ltd at AU­RA Restau­rant & Bar in Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day. From the clas­sics to ca­lyp­so, pop, some rhythm and blues, lots of jazz, Wil­son is mak­ing her name in the mu­sic are­na in T&T. This show will ben­e­fit the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fe­male Ex­ec­u­tives of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Afett) to raise funds in sup­port of a cam­paign to es­tab­lish child­care and home­work cen­tres in the work­place, as well as ex­plore oth­er child care so­lu­tions to sup­port the many chal­lenges fac­ing work­ing par­ents. Wil­son be­gan pub­lic ap­pear­ances at the Diego Mar­tin Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School. All she re­mem­bers is her class teacher, a Mrs Gilkes, say­ing, "'lit­tle Ger­maine singing lead so­lo.'" It didn't seem to be any­thing big to Wil­son back then; she just want­ed to sing with the school choir for the Mu­sic Fes­ti­val.

Af­ter singing for many years at school and church, her first ma­jor com­pe­ti­tion was at Scout­ing for Tal­ent host­ed by Neil Giusep­pi in 1995. Lat­er that same year she joined the Ly­di­an Singers. Mes­merised by the voic­es of Ed­ward Cum­ber­batch, Joanne Pyle, and Glen­nis Year­wood, Wil­son looked for­ward to be­ing able to en­joy that stature some day. It was in that mi­lieu that she came to un­der­stand that mu­sic was much more com­plex than sim­ply singing from the heart. The ex­pe­ri­ence with the Ly­di­ans gave her a new ap­pre­ci­a­tion for clas­si­cal mu­sic, folk and spir­i­tu­als. By 2002 she had not on­ly been lead and un­der­study for two op­eras staged by the Ly­di­ans, but was ex­posed to and ful­ly in­volved in Folk/Mod­ern Dance and Dra­ma through the Prime Min­is­ter's Best Vil­lage Com­pe­ti­tion, be­ing ac­cept­ed as both ac­tress and singer.

Wil­son wore the ac­co­lade of Most Out­stand­ing Per­former three times at the Fes­ti­val in 2002, 2006 and 2008. Af­ter tak­ing home four tro­phies in 2006 from the Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, Wil­son copped a fur­ther six tro­phies the fol­low­ing Mu­sic Fes­ti­val in 2008. More re­cent­ly, Wil­son has been ac­cept­ed at the pres­ti­gious Berkley Col­lege of Mu­sic in Boston to pur­sue a Mas­ters de­gree in Mu­sic and the Per­form­ing Arts. The young singer con­sid­ers her tal­ent to be a won­der­ful gift from God, yet she ad­mires and is in­spired by all the mu­si­cal tal­ent around her. Close to her heart, she said, "Pat Bish­op to me is not just a mu­si­cal di­rec­tor but the Moth­er of the Arts...at least in T&T." The cel­e­brat­ed singers, mu­si­cians, and writ­ers El­la An­dall, An­dre Tanker, Black Stal­in, Jesse Nor­man, Miri­am Make­ba and oth­ers al­so fig­ure as in­flu­ences in her life.

About Song­birds

Al­ways cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for live per­for­mance with a dif­fer­ence, Pro­duc­tion One Ltd took a dif­fer­ent turn from the proven and suc­cess­ful Jazz Artists on the Greens, to cre­ate an in­ti­mate se­ries of shows fo­cused on the fe­male voice. SONG­BIRDS.live is a new con­cert se­ries fea­tur­ing fe­male Caribbean vo­cal­ists; a show­case fea­tur­ing, on a reg­u­lar ba­sis, some of the most no­table up­com­ing, as yet un­her­ald­ed fe­male voic­es in con­tem­po­rary mu­sic in the coun­try with an ear turned to Jazz and World Mu­sic.

Singing in some­times new col­lab­o­ra­tions that of­fer just enough of the im­pro­visato­ry sur­prise which is the hall­mark of jazz, these small­er pro­duc­tions from Pro­duc­tion One Ltd serve as a plat­form for the record­ing of the per­for­mances with the ul­ti­mate re­ward be­ing "The Best of SONG­BIRDS.live" CD to be made avail­able at the end of the se­ries. Pre­vi­ous SONG­BIRDS from the se­ries have been Car­o­line Mair, Ruth Os­man, Can­dice Al­can­tara, Bren­da But­ler and re­cent­ly, Vaugh­nette Big­ford com­ing off a scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mance on No­vem­ber 4.

Tick­ets for this spe­cial SONG­BIRDS...live are $150 and are avail­able at the AU­RA box of­fice or on­line at song­birds.eventbrite.com

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion and to hear tracks by the artistes, vis­it the Web site, www.song­bird­slive.com