Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

Next Sat­ur­day, one day af­ter her 22nd birth­day, so­pra­no Clarice Beep­ut will con­front one of her biggest fears when she sings Mozart’s “Ex­sul­tate, Ju­bi­late” at a con­cert in Port-of-Spain.

The three-move­ment motet—a short sa­cred com­po­si­tion for voice sung with or with­out an or­ches­tra—was writ­ten by Mozart in 1773 when he was still in his teens and is a favourite of fe­male so­pra­nos the world over.

How­ev­er, in a pre­vi­ous per­for­mance of the piece, Beep­ut was not sat­is­fied that she did jus­tice to the piece.

She ad­mit­ted, “I was scared of that motet for a while be­cause I had an ex­pe­ri­ence with one of those move­ments, which was not par­tic­u­lar­ly pleas­ant, a few years ago in the first Sa­cred Clas­sics, Hymns and Spir­i­tu­als.

“I de­mand a re­match. I am go­ing to win this time. I am not go­ing to stand up there scared.” Beep­ut con­fessed.

Her chance at re­demp­tion will come at An Evening of Sa­cred Clas­sics, Hymns and Spir­i­tu­als at the Church of Scot­land, where she will be per­form­ing along with the Lib­er­ty Chorale and Cham­ber Or­ches­tra.

A so­pra­no is the high­est vo­cal range among the four ba­sic voice types which in­clude al­to, tenor, and bass. It is the most com­mon among the four, and the one that Beep­ut is most de­vot­ed to strength­en­ing.

“You grow up and de­vel­op a cer­tain type of voice. It re­al­ly de­pends on your range. I am good with my high­er notes and very com­fort­able up in the stratos­phere, so that’s what makes me a so­pra­no,” she said.

Sat­ur­day’s con­cert will help raise funds to sup­port Beep­ut’s aca­d­e­m­ic stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the North Car­oli­na School of the Arts (UNC­SA). How­ev­er, she al­so wants the au­di­ence to be cap­ti­vat­ed and moved by the mu­sic.

She has sung in mul­ti­ple lan­guages in­clud­ing Eng­lish, Latin, Ital­ian, French, Span­ish, Ger­man, and Czech and be­ing a so­pra­no has been her forté for 15 years, af­ford­ing her many op­por­tu­ni­ties to demon­strate her vo­cal bravu­ra.

How­ev­er, singing isn’t her on­ly mu­si­cal pur­suit. Beep­ut al­so plays the African djem­be drum.

The San Juan res­i­dent re­called that she had start­ed play­ing the in­stru­ment in pri­ma­ry school al­most at the same time that she start­ed to sing at tal­ent shows.

Over the years,un­der the guid­ance of Ever­ald ‘Red­man’ Wat­son, she be­came en­chant­ed by the djem­be.

“The teacher was drum­ming and I told him I want­ed to be part of this and he was so kind to me. I was like, ‘I’m join­ing!’...I still play my djem­be now. I don’t think I’ll ever stop play­ing,” she said.

“My first thought is al­ways my djem­be when I think of home.”

On Beep­ut’s playlist, Han­del has been her most re­played com­pos­er, well known for his com­po­si­tion, “Mes­si­ah.” How­ev­er, out­side the realm of opera and sa­cred songs, she al­so adores house mu­sic.

“I love my clas­si­cal mu­sic, don’t get me wrong, but I am a suck­er for house mu­sic. I can’t get enough of it, es­pe­cial­ly deep house, which is my favourite genre of mu­sic. I love the rhythm,” she said.

The ex­pe­ri­ence of study­ing abroad has helped Beep­ut de­vel­op some in­valu­able friend­ships.

“I re­al­ly opened up over there. I was a bit scared at first be­cause I nev­er re­al­ly ex­pe­ri­enced much with Amer­i­cans, but they were so wel­com­ing, and friend­ly from the very be­gin­ning and I have de­vel­oped so many love­ly friend­ships that I don’t think I’ll want to let go in the long term,” she said.

A T&T Mu­sic Fes­ti­val win­ner in 2018, 2020, and 2022, Beep­ut will re­turn to North Car­oli­na in mid-Au­gust for her sec­ond year of un­der­grad­u­ate stud­ies at UNC­SA.