Pat Bish­op, who died yes­ter­day, was one of the most ver­sa­tile Caribbean women of our day. A cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go by birth, she was a Na­tion­al Schol­ar­ship win­ner from the Bish­op Anstey High School. She pro­ceed­ed to King's Col­lege, Durham Uni­ver­si­ty where she stud­ied Art. Up­on com­ple­tion of this de­gree, Bish­op re­turned to Trinidad where she taught art at her al­ma mater for a few years. How­ev­er, her rest­less spir­it led her to UWI Mona where she sub­se­quent­ly re­ceived her MA in West In­di­an his­to­ry, her the­sis be­ing "Run­away Slaves in Ja­maica, 1807 to 1823." Bish­op lec­tured in his­to­ry at UWI at both the Mona and St Au­gus­tine cam­pus­es for some eight years. She was al­so a lec­tur­er in the His­to­ry of Art and De­sign at the Ja­maica School of Art 1970 to 1972.

It was this com­bi­na­tion of study in both the Arts and His­to­ry of the Caribbean that lat­er blos­somed in­to her deep in­ter­est in, and pi­o­neer­ing work with the steel band move­ment in Trinidad. She fo­cused this in­ter­est with the Wit­co Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra and as its con­duc­tor took the band on eight ma­jor USA tours in­clud­ing two ma­jor con­certs at Carnegie Mu­sic Hall. She was the first to con­duct a com­bined steel band and sym­pho­ny or­ches­tra-this be­ing the Des­per­a­does and the New York Pops Sym­pho­ny in mid 1980's. As the mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of The Ly­di­an Singers, Bish­op was able to bring to au­di­ences in Trinidad and abroad her tal­ent as a mu­si­cian, pro­duc­ing first-class per­for­mances of the great clas­sics by Ver­di, Rossi­ni, Dvo­rak, and Beethoven. She has al­so pre­sent­ed the op­er­at­ic works Koan­ga by Delius, L'Elisir D'Amore by Donizetti and Tu­ran­dot by Puc­ci­ni to Trinidad au­di­ences.

Pat Bish­op did not leave her gifts with the paint­brush be­hind for she ex­hib­it­ed her work not on­ly in Trinidad, but al­so in Bar­ba­dos and Lon­don. Of in­ter­est she ex­hib­it­ed 37 minia­tures, wood­en bas-re­liefs and ob­jects on the sub­ject of the "Jour­ney of the Ma­gi"-a se­ries on the pur­suit of dis­in­ter­est­ed wis­dom and its con­se­quences. Her phi­los­o­phy, deeply root­ed in clas­si­cal Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy and her life in the church, are ex­pressed in these and oth­er art forms. She has lec­tured ex­ten­sive­ly both lo­cal­ly and abroad on the cul­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go, most es­pe­cial­ly on steel­band, Car­ni­val and oth­er art process­es. In 1994 she re­ceived the Trin­i­ty Cross, Trinidad and To­ba­go's high­est Na­tion­al Award for her con­tri­bu­tion in the field of art and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

When asked as to her fu­ture hopes, she replied, "That my coun­try­men may find their place in the sun...though that seems now, to be so re­mote as to be im­pos­si­ble." She con­tin­ued: "To be able to be­lieve more ful­ly with Ju­lian of Nor­wich that 'all shall be well and all man­ner of things shall be well.'" And fi­nal­ly, "to be able to leave this world, and soon, with seren­i­ty and a qui­et mind." Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of such stal­wart, mu­si­cal pi­o­neers as Joyce Spence and Al­ma Pierre seemed like a tall or­der, but as the third mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of The Ly­di­ans ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue her pre­de­ces­sors' lega­cies, Pat Bish­op did more than hold her own. She is in her own right, a na­tion­al trea­sure.

For many, Bish­op should be re­gard­ed with awe and amaze­ment. That view­point is un­der­stand­able when one con­sid­ered the many hats she wore: mu­si­col­o­gist, teacher, vo­cal coach, con­duc­tor of choirs, pans and or­ches­tras, artist, ac­com­pa­nist and the list goes on! Every­thing she touched seemed to turn to gold. Yet, in spite of the vic­to­ries, the ac­co­lades, the awards-in­clud­ing the na­tion's high­est ho­n­our, the Trin­i­ty Cross-Pat main­tained that the 'for­mu­la' is sim­ple. It is a mat­ter of "know­ing that she does God's will." Bish­op was in­stru­men­tal in es­tab­lish­ing the Ly­di­an Singers as one of the Caribbean's pre­mier choirs. Her fer­vid pas­sion to let the ethe­re­al medi­um of mu­sic soothe, com­fort and up­lift has led the choir to vic­to­ry in 1987 Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, where they were award­ed the most out­stand­ing choir and per­former of the fes­ti­val.

Her ex­pert train­ing and guid­ance have been pre­cip­i­tat­ed nu­mer­ous tri­umphs for the Ly­di­an soloists. In 1997, Bar­ry Mar­tin cap­tured the award of "The Most Out­stand­ing Per­former" of the Na­tion­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. Fol­low­ing a clean sweep of the ma­jor awards in the 1990 fes­ti­val, Pat's tu­tor­ship led Ed­ward Cum­ber­batch to claim the cov­et­ed top ho­n­ours at the Se­nior Vo­cal Recital Class at the In­ter­na­tion­al Eisteddfod of South Africa in 1997.

This bi­o­graph­i­cal sketch of

Pat Bish­op was adapt­ed from the Web site of the Ly­di­an Singers, the choir she con­duct­ed for years.