SAN­DRA L BLOOD

In com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, the Net­work of NGOs of T&T for the Ad­vance­ment of Women will stage Woman Pow­er – An Evening of Ex­cel­lence on March 8 at NA­PA, Port-of-Spain from 7.30 pm.

The event will be host­ed by for­mer Miss Uni­verse Wendy Fitzwilliam and fea­tures a bevy of fe­male acts, among them Car­ol Ad­di­son, jazz icon Vaugh­nette Big­ford, so­ca princess Nailah Black­man, ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty and chut­ney so­ca star Nisha B, Xavier Strings and so­ca sen­sa­tion Na­dia Bat­son. The cast in­cludes the sole male, for­mer Chut­ney Monarch win­ner Neval Chate­lal.

T&T’s Tu­na­puna-born Ad­di­son, who was a house­hold name in the 1970s in T&T, even­tu­al­ly es­tab­lished a strong pres­ence in the world of busi­ness, mu­sic and min­istry in the US and around the world. Her ca­reer be­gan as an R&B singer and her mu­sic quick­ly climbed the charts of the air­ways and tele­vi­sion. Via KH Records, she pro­duced her first al­bum, Born to Shine—the theme song writ­ten by her as in­spired by her moth­er’s re­peat­ed words to her, that she was born to shine. Take Me Back was al­so an­oth­er one of her wide­ly ac­claimed hits from that al­bum.

Ad­di­son, who was last in T&T for a con­cert per­for­mance at Born to Shine in 2022, even­tu­al­ly shared the stage with many Gram­my-award-win­ning stars, in­clud­ing Michael Jack­son, Pat­tie La­Belle, Li­onel Ritchie, Cindy Lau­per, James Brown, Phyl­lis Hy­man, Mil­lie Jack­son, Rober­ta Flack, KC and the Sun­shine Band and Na­tal­ie Cole.

Big­ford, who has made a name for her­self on the lo­cal jazz cir­cuit, has al­so done a cov­er of Born to Shine and may very well de­liv­er it on the night as on­ly she can.

As an or­dained min­is­ter in the US to­day, Ad­di­son spreads the good news of the gospel in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Among oth­er re­lat­ed ac­com­plish­ments, Ad­di­son wrote a movie called A Pas­tor’s Se­cret that pre­mièred at the Pe­ter Sharp The­ater on Broad­way in New York City, and re­leased a Gospel al­bum, I Am Free.

Xavier Strings con­sti­tutes sis­ters Ja­nine and Janelle Xavier, who ad­mit to hav­ing to­tal­ly op­po­site per­son­al­i­ties but some­how, when they’re on­stage with vi­o­lins in hand, the mu­sic takes over. They say they feed off each oth­er. Janelle se­duces au­di­ences with her deep, throaty al­to while Ja­nine some­times joins in with a sweet so­pra­no. Al­though they are clas­si­cal­ly trained, they step in­to ter­ri­to­ry where few vi­o­lin­ists have gone be­fore—so­ca, chut­ney, reg­gae, tam­brin, rap­so, jamoo, zouk, and fuse styles of clas­si­cal mu­sic, rock, pop, R&B, jazz, mid­dle-east­ern and African mu­sic.

Woman Pow­er is said to be a one-of-a-kind pro­duc­tion, serv­ing a de­lec­table menu by some of the best fe­male tal­ents in T&T.

For more in­fo, go to is­landet­ick­ets.com or call 678-7549.