Khara Per­sad

A suc­cess­ful ca­reer for mu­si­cal prodi­gies in T&T is pos­si­ble, and the He­roes Foun­da­tion is tak­ing our coun­try's tal­ent­ed youth as far as Eu­rope to help make that dream a re­al­i­ty.

To­day, the non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion is send­ing two mu­si­cians, Sameer Al­ladin and Harley Robert­son, to France and then Ger­many, as part of its first-ever In­ter­na­tion­al Mu­sic Men­tor­ship Op­por­tu­ni­ty pro­gramme.

At a func­tion at Tatil, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, chair­man of the foun­da­tion, Philip Julien, said Al­ladin and Robert­son were se­lect­ed as ben­e­fi­cia­ries of a grant from the French Em­bassy, and were head­ed for "a mu­si­cal men­tor­ship op­por­tu­ni­ty of a life­time."

Al­ladin, a vi­o­lin­ist, and Robert­son, a dou­ble bassist, were se­lect­ed by a pan­el of in­ter­na­tion­al mu­si­cians, Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T pro­fes­sors, and Mae­stro Kwame Ryan, an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned con­duc­tor from T&T. The two will even­tu­al­ly join Ryan for a con­cert in Bor­deaux, France on June 22.

Robert­son, 29, who will do a mas­ter's in mu­sic per­for­mance at Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty with a full schol­ar­ship, start­ing in Au­gust, said be­ing se­lect­ed to per­form at the in­ter­na­tion­al des­ti­na­tion con­cert was hum­bling.

"We get ex­po­sure to some­thing that you wouldn't nor­mal­ly find in Trinidad," he said.

"So I think be­ing able to go to Bor­deaux and ex­pe­ri­ence a cul­ture and see the ob­vi­ous dif­fer­ences, but al­so the sim­i­lar­i­ties, is quite en­cour­ag­ing."

Al­ladin, 22, agreed that be­ing se­lect­ed was en­cour­ag­ing for a clas­si­cal mu­si­cian.

"Part of be­ing a mu­si­cian is to be ex­posed to pro­fes­sion­als and be im­mersed in that kind of en­vi­ron­ment, so the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go there is phe­nom­e­nal," Al­ladin said.

Al­ladin has dreams of be­com­ing a con­duc­tor one day, and said the foun­da­tion had giv­en him the chance to see pro­fes­sion­al con­duc­tors in ac­tion.

"It's tru­ly a gift."

He has been ac­cept­ed in­to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol, where he will study for his mas­ter's in mu­si­col­o­gy start­ing in Oc­to­ber.

The pro­gramme was in line with the foun­da­tion's com­mit­ment to es­tab­lish­ing projects that in­spire youth to be proac­tive and pro­mote pos­i­tive changes in their ar­eas of in­flu­ence, even in mu­sic.

Robert­son, who cred­it­ed his par­ents for his suc­cess, en­cour­aged oth­ers to take their tal­ents all the way.

"I'd like to en­cour­age peo­ple to make the most of what­ev­er skills they have, and re­al­ly en­sure they max­imise all the op­por­tu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed to them," he said.

Two of their men­tors from UTT were present for the cer­e­mo­ny, and said the de­ci­sion to send Al­ladin and Robert­son was no mis­take.

Jonathan Stor­er, a con­cert mas­ter at UTT and Al­ladin's vi­o­lin men­tor, said the fu­ture con­duc­tor was al­ways ask­ing the right ques­tions to im­prove his tal­ent.

"He's ac­tu­al­ly one of the most fo­cused in­di­vid­u­als I've come across."

Stor­er said Robert­son grew tremen­dous­ly as a mu­si­cian over the last year and a half.

"He's re­al­ly fo­cused and he un­der­stood what need­ed to be done, and he's done it."

Eleanor Ryan, a men­tor and Prin­ci­pal First Vi­o­lin at the uni­ver­si­ty, said their fo­cus and com­mit­ment would lead them to suc­cess.

"It's in­cred­i­bly hard work to make a ca­reer in mu­sic but I don't think that ei­ther of those boys is scared of the work," Ryan said.

The foun­da­tion is now plan­ning its sec­ond mu­si­cal men­tor­ship ini­tia­tive and will hold a ben­e­fit con­cert on Oc­to­ber 13 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, Port-of-Spain.

The He­roes Foun­da­tion is a reg­is­tered non-prof­it, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion that was es­tab­lished in Oc­to­ber 2002 to serve the youth of T&T. The foun­da­tion cre­ates and pro­motes men­tor­ship ac­tiv­i­ties; like the mu­sic ini­tia­tive and their Big Broth­ers Big Sis­ters pro­gramme, to nur­ture the next gen­er­a­tion of "he­roes." It seeks to make youth more en­gaged in so­ci­ety so as to cre­ate a pos­i­tive change at both a com­mu­ni­ty and na­tion­al lev­el.