Leah So­rias

The death of mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Roland Gor­don last Fri­day has opened old wounds for many in the cul­tur­al are­na.

It has raised con­cerns among them es­pe­cial­ly since they've lost ten icon­ic cul­tur­al mas­ters in the last decade, iron­i­cal­ly, close to the Car­ni­val sea­son. "It seems that al­most every year we are los­ing some­one," cul­tur­al am­bas­sador Nor­van Fuller­ton lament­ed. Fuller­ton was a close friend of Gor­don and founder of the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ing Group, of which Gor­don was mu­si­cal di­rec­tor. "We have to do some­thing about this, be­cause we can't af­ford to lose any­one else," he said.

�2 Se­quence of deaths

On Feb­ru­ary 11, 2000, the na­tion lost its great­est ca­lyp­so leg­end, Lord Kitch­en­er (Ald­wyn Roberts). The 77-year-old, who bat­tled with a rare dis­ease for 13 days, died at Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex af­ter two heart at­tacks. In his ca­reer, which spanned six decades, Kitch­en­er won the Road March ti­tle on 13 oc­ca­sions, the most times an in­di­vid­ual has won that crown. He was hailed by T&T and those abroad as the Road March King of the World. Less than three months af­ter Kitch­en­er's death, on May 2, 2000, tears flowed at the pass­ing of vet­er­an chut­ney singer, Sun­dar Popo. Popo, 57, died of heart fail­ure. He was hailed as T&T's Chut­ney King. Then, on Jan­u­ary 22, 2002, at the height of the Car­ni­val sea­son, Ex­tem­po Grand­mas­ter Lord Pre­tender (Al­ric Far­rell) died in his sleep. He was 84. In his 75-year ca­reer, Pre­tender ad­hered to tra­di­tion­al ca­lyp­so styles but, he was con­sid­ered a pi­o­neer of the mod­ern rap­so art form. On Fan­tas­tic Fri­day–Feb­ru­ary 28, 2003, news of An­dre Tanker's sud­den death caused na­tion­wide mourn­ing.

The in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed com­pos­er, song-writer and singer died of a mas­sive heart at­tack. He was 61. The so­ca are­na was not spared tragedy. On De­cem­ber 19, 2004, so­ca sweet­heart Oni­ka Bostic died at hos­pi­tal eight days af­ter a hor­rif­ic five-car smash-up on the East­ern Main Road, Laven­tille. At the time of her death Bostic, 24, was rid­ing high on the suc­cess of her first re­lease for Car­ni­val 2005, All is Yours. She was on her way to per­form at the Base, Ch­aguara­mas, when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred. Two of the coun­try's cul­tur­al stal­warts passed away in 2007. The Mighty Ter­ror (Fitzger­ald Hen­ry) died on March 14. The 87-year-old was sick for some time. Ter­ror was one year short of cel­e­brat­ing his 60th year as a pro­fes­sion­al ca­lyp­son­ian. Six months af­ter Ter­ror's death, Lit­tle Carib The­atre chair­man emer­i­tus, Aubrey Adams, passed away. Adams, 88, suc­cumbed to in­juries which he sus­tained from a fall.

The year 2009 was even more heart-wrench­ing as three pop­u­lar fig­ures who con­tributed tremen­dous­ly to the de­vel­op­ment of mu­sic and the­atre passed on. It start­ed with the death of four-time ca­lyp­so king Duke (Kelvin Pope). Duke died at hos­pi­tal af­ter de­vel­op­ing com­pli­ca­tions re­lat­ed to a blood trans­fu­sion. His body's in­abil­i­ty to pro­duce enough red and white blood cells caused him to be ill for two years. Then, on June 9, ac­com­plished mu­sic pro­duc­er Shel­don "Shel Shok" Ben­jamin died at hos­pi­tal af­ter bat­tling a form of can­cer called non-Hodgkins lym­phoma. He was three days shy of his 40th birth­day. Those who worked with Ben­jamin in­clud­ed Gen­er­al Grant, Machel Mon­tano, De­stra Gar­cia and Al­i­son Hinds. His tal­ent as a pro­duc­er cli­maxed af­ter he pro­duced Mon­tano's Big Truck–a Road March win­ner. But Mairoon's Ali's sud­den death on De­cem­ber 20 last year may have been the most shock­ing. The cul­tur­al stal­wart im­pre­sario was found dead in the bath­room of her home. She died from a cere­bral haem­or­rhage, doc­tors said. She was 54.