Fay­ola KJ Fras­er

Jo­han­na Chucka­ree, bet­ter known as “D Pi­ano Girl”, has graced au­di­ences both

lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly with her im­mea­sur­able tal­ent.

At “42 years young”, she has spent many years per­fect­ing her craft, con­tribut­ing to the mu­sic in­dus­try and fill­ing the hearts of au­di­ences every­where with the fruits of her tal­ent and labour. Hold­ing both a BSc in Elec­tri­cal En­gi­neer­ing and an MSc in Hu­man Re­sources Man­age­ment, her love for mu­sic has al­ways been bol­stered by her abil­i­ty and prowess in oth­er fields, but she has “al­ways come back” to her love of the pi­ano.

Hav­ing grown up in a fam­i­ly of tal­ent­ed mu­si­cians, get­ting in­volved in mu­sic was a nat­ur­al path for Chucka­ree, as her sis­ter Chris­tine and broth­er Jo­han are both skilled pi­ano and steel­pan play­ers. She looked up to her sib­lings and they sup­port­ed each oth­er from a young age, as she re­mem­bers her old­er sis­ter, a skilled pi­anist in her own right, play­ing the pi­ano with her and help­ing her pre­pare for her ex­ams. As a mul­ti-tal­ent­ed mu­si­cian, her skills were not re­served to one in­stru­ment, and she al­so played the steel­pan, vi­o­lin, clar­inet and gui­tar, even com­plet­ing steel­pan ex­am­i­na­tions at the UWI Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre.

Her in­stru­ment of choice, the pi­ano, for Chucka­ree, is not just an in­stru­ment but a ve­hi­cle that echoes depth and range of emo­tion through its keys. Her love for the pi­ano is deeply root­ed in the pi­ano’s unique ver­sa­til­i­ty.

“I was al­ways drawn to the pi­ano. The abil­i­ty to voice ten notes at the same time in dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions and har­monies has al­ways in­trigued me. It is al­so a very per­cus­sive and rhyth­mic in­stru­ment, so you can get that ex­cit­ing feel­ing “drum­ming” with your fin­gers based on the style you play.”

Ac­cord­ing to Chucka­ree, the in­stru­ment al­so has “an im­mense­ly wide range of notes, al­low­ing the play­er to play low rum­bling sounds or high and lighter sounds”, mak­ing it easy to cre­ate dif­fer­ent moods.

Chucka­ree re­mem­bers her first mo­ment of mas­tery of the in­stru­ment, as it was marked by a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone at the age of 11, when she won the Na­tion­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val Cham­pi­onships in the Un­der-12 cat­e­go­ry. This vic­to­ry was not just a tes­ta­ment to her tech­ni­cal skills but al­so her first mo­ment per­form­ing on a grand stage, and she re­mem­bers feel­ing “proud and pleas­ant­ly sur­prised”. As she has grown in­to her ca­reer, she has not tak­en the most di­rect path to her pas­sions, as she moved from “from en­gi­neer­ing to HR man­age­ment to mu­sic. From push­ing bound­aries with cre­at­ing new styles of mu­sic, di­rect­ing all my mu­sic videos, ar­rang­ing every­thing you hear, com­pos­ing my own songs to per­form­ing on some of the biggest stages in T&T.”

She has tru­ly tran­scend­ed lim­i­ta­tions to ex­cel at the high­est lev­el and is well sought-af­ter for events from wed­dings to Car­ni­val fetes to cor­po­rate func­tions. She has al­so made her name in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, per­form­ing at events such as the Do­mini­ca Jazz Fes­ti­val and Uber­so­ca Cruise in 2019. She re­turns to Do­mini­ca this month to per­form and is al­so look­ing for­ward to her own show in Queen’s Hall in Oc­to­ber 2024.

Chucka­ree’s evo­lu­tion through­out her ca­reer has tak­en a va­ri­ety of dif­fer­ent twists and turns. Her par­ents en­cour­aged her to pur­sue a tra­di­tion­al ca­reer, and she be­came a project en­gi­neer, which she doesn’t re­gret.

“As an en­gi­neer, I gained ex­pe­ri­ence in skills such as project man­age­ment, con­tract prepa­ra­tion, cost es­ti­ma­tion and ne­go­ti­a­tion skills that I still use to­day as an artiste as well as the con­fi­dence that goes along with hav­ing those skills.”

Af­ter tran­si­tion­ing in­to hu­man re­source man­age­ment, the com­pa­ny she worked for closed at the end of 2018. At that time, she de­cid­ed to start post­ing her own pi­ano arrange­ments on so­cial me­dia, with her first so­ca arrange­ment of “Full Ex­treme” by Ul­ti­mate Re­jects was well re­ceived.

In 2019, she stepped ful­ly in­to her abil­i­ties as a pi­ano soloist, and played pi­ano on the Sa­van­nah Grass cov­er video. This sky­rock­et­ed her to pop­u­lar­i­ty, as her melod­ic in­ter­pre­ta­tion was well-loved by young and old across T&T.

How­ev­er, even with this gam­bit of achieve­ments, her path has not al­ways been smooth op­er­at­ing as an artiste and mu­si­cian in T&T.

“It was very dif­fi­cult putting my­self for­ward as a pi­ano soloist, part­ly be­cause when I was younger, sev­er­al T&T mu­sic in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als would tell me that I ‘play too much’ on keys and pos­si­bly want­ed me to fit in­to a role that they were more fa­mil­iar with - maybe as a key­boardist in a band,” she re­called.

As a younger mu­si­cian, she felt that she was not made to fit in the pop­u­lar mould for pi­anists dic­tat­ed by mu­sic in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als - as a key­boardist in a band.

Al­though she holds great re­spect for the role, she nev­er felt that it “quite res­onat­ed with me”. She al­so feels that sup­port from T&T’s na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions geared to the arts should be made more vis­i­ble, as she her­self is not sure what ex­ists and how to ac­cess it.

Be­ing a woman has al­so been a chal­lenge in her ca­reer, and she ac­knowl­edges that it is “a chal­lenge in every in­dus­try, not on­ly mu­sic”. She de­scribed it as “the bal­anc­ing act be­tween hav­ing con­fi­dence and be­ing as­sertive in pur­su­ing your goals, but not be­ing “too” as­sertive oth­er­wise you are name-called, and the in­sane beau­ty stan­dards that have been placed up­on us”. Be­cause of these fac­tors, she has and con­tin­ues to be her own biggest cheer­leader, and stays stead­fast on her jour­ney to self-dis­cov­ery.

Chucka­ree be­lieves that oth­er women, es­pe­cial­ly those fac­ing stum­bling blocks in their ca­reers, should “al­ways be true to them­selves”. She says those who are seek­ing to cre­ate or re­frame nar­ra­tives, should ex­pect op­po­si­tion and con­tra­dic­to­ry opin­ions, but should nev­er give up on them­selves and ho­n­our their vi­sions for them­selves. As for her own path for­ward, she is ded­i­cat­ed to her craft, and push­ing the bound­aries of mu­si­cal gen­res. Her num­ber one goal “to be hap­py”, is un­der­pinned by her in­ter­est in ex­plor­ing all her tal­ents, in­clud­ing singing, ar­rang­ing, danc­ing and act­ing.

Jo­han­na Chucka­ree con­tin­ues to open up the sphere of mu­sic in T&T, har­ness­ing our rich cul­ture and mu­si­cal her­itage, pair­ing it with her skills and train­ing, and cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful sound for us all to en­joy.