Sean Nero

Er­ic Tay­lor, pres­i­dent of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­son­ian Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co), is to­day as­sur­ing young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans that years of ne­glect by his or­gan­i­sa­tion are now at an end. At last Wednes­day's dis­tri­b­u­tion of HP lap­tops to 18 fi­nal­ists in this year's Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion at Tu­co's Jern­ing­ham Av­enue, Bel­mont of­fice, Tay­lor an­nounced the new re­spect fu­ture bards can ex­pect.

Tu­co stepped in to pro­vide the lap­tops when a spon­sor in this year's Ju­nior Monarch con­test re­neged on a promise to sup­ply com­put­ers as prizes. He said: "For too long we have ig­nored our emerg­ing gen­er­a­tion of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. The youths have dis­pelled the no­tion that ca­lyp­so is dead. That be­lief has been slain." For that rea­son, he said, the ca­lyp­so out­fit has in­tro­duced a se­ries of work­shops, now in progress in its four re­gions, de­signed to nur­ture young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in the art of com­pos­ing, singing and mu­si­cian­ship.

The three-month pro­gramme now in progress is con­duct­ed every Sat­ur­day, for three hours, from 9 am. Fa­cil­i­ta­tors in­clude reign­ing and for­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Mon­archs Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool (Chalk­dust), Morel Pe­ters (Lu­ta), as well as mu­sic ed­u­ca­tor Roland Gor­don. Tay­lor said Tu­co would pro­vide in­cen­tives to keep young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans mo­ti­vat­ed, say­ing that they al­ready have the in­nate dri­ve to keep the art form alive.