Paula Lin­do

The con­cert Shades of Blue will show­case the mu­si­cal tal­ent of Syn­ty­che Bish­op, ac­tress and res­i­dent play­er at the Na­tion­al The­atre Arts Co. She said she has been con­cen­trat­ing on act­ing for a while, but her first love has al­ways been singing.

Bish­op be­gan singing at age five and start­ed train­ing in pi­ano and voice at ages nine and 12, re­spec­tive­ly. She joined the Suite Chorale in Princes Town, where she trained with Yvonne Suite and went on two tours to Be­lize.

"I al­ways loved per­form­ing, and the choir does a lot of danc­ing which I al­so love. When I was young they were amaz­ing to me and I said this is a choir I def­i­nite­ly need to be with."

Bish­op said she had stopped singing for a while. "I was re­al­ly fo­cus­ing on act­ing, be­cause I thought with act­ing I was able to do every­thing I re­al­ly loved, like singing with mu­si­cal the­atre, danc­ing, play­ing a mu­si­cal in­stru­ment if I need­ed to."

She stud­ied for her Bach­e­lor's de­gree in The­atre Arts and has worked with sev­er­al pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies in T&T, in­clud­ing JSC En­ter­tain­ment, Ray­mond Choo Kong Pro­duc­tions, Nec­es­sary Arts, and LP En­ter­tain­ment The­atre.

Bish­op said her aim is to make it to Broad­way.The show's name is meant to re­flect a num­ber of facets.

"First of all, my birth­stone, sap­phire, is blue. Al­so, blue has a lot of pow­er­ful mean­ings, in­clud­ing strength. Each shade of blue rep­re­sents a dif­fer­ent genre of mu­sic, so there's some­thing in there for every­body. It show­cas­es my ver­sa­til­i­ty as well as a vo­cal­ist, so it shows that I am able to do a lot of dif­fer­ent gen­res. You're go­ing to get some so­ca, some reg­gae, jazz, pop and more. This is me in con­cert, it's very in­ti­mate, close and very per­son­al."

Shades of Blue will take place on Oc­to­ber 16, show time is 7 pm. At the con­cert at the Kaiso Blues Cafe on Wood­ford Street in Port-of-Spain, she will be per­form­ing with the band Sim­ply Put.

�2 More in­fo: Find Shades of Blue the Con­cert on Face­book.