KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

CeCe Winans More Than This: Trinidad will now take place at the Queen’s Park Oval on Ju­ly 31.

The 15-time Gram­my award-win­ning gospel-record­ing artiste is sched­uled to per­form in T&T and Ja­maica, as part of her More Than This world tour which kicked off in Can­ton, Ohio, on Feb­ru­ary 2.

Lo­cal con­tem­po­rary wor­ship group Gates Praise in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the RR Group of Com­pa­nies is putting on the event.

Pas­tor David Charles of the First Church of the Open Bible, San Fer­nan­do, re­vealed the change in venue dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Queen’s Park Oval.

“Ini­tial­ly the con­cert was sched­uled to be held at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um,” he ex­plained.

“It has now been moved to this icon­ic venue the Queen’s Park Oval, a place where leg­ends have been made, records bro­ken, his­to­ry writ­ten with bat and ball.

“Now we are on the verge of an­oth­er his­toric mo­ment. One carved out of more than five decades of mu­sic. CeCe Winans has been singing since the age of 5, she is now 60.”

Known as the best-sell­ing and most-award­ed fe­male gospel artist of all time, Winans ce­ment­ed her sta­tus as one of the most ac­com­plished and cel­e­brat­ed women in mu­sic his­to­ry.

Her lat­est chart-top­ping mu­si­cal of­fer­ings, Be­lieve For It and More Than This (Pure­Springs Gospel/Fair Trade Ser­vices, LLC), are her first two live record­ings fea­tur­ing some of the biggest songs in Chris­t­ian mu­sic to­day.

Charles said the event has been two years in the mak­ing. He said the ex­pe­ri­ence has proven to be well worth the wait, em­pha­sis­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of be­ing part of the More Than This world tour.

An­oth­er mem­ber of the lead­er­ship team, Pas­tor Luke Quam­i­na, ex­pand­ed on his state­ment and high­light­ed the vi­tal role of com­mu­ni­ty with­in our na­tion. He spoke pas­sion­ate­ly about the im­por­tance of uni­ty and how ef­forts like these are es­sen­tial in bridg­ing the gaps our so­ci­ety faces to­day.

“CeCe Winans More Than This: Trinidad is not mere­ly just an­oth­er con­cert,” he said.

“At Gates Praise we cre­ate spaces where peo­ple can have an­oth­er en­counter with God.

“Very ear­ly in the cam­paign a lo­cal chil­dren’s home reached out to us ex­press­ing their de­sire to be part of this ex­pe­ri­ence. With­out hes­i­ta­tion we said we would spon­sor this home to be with us in this event for free. Since then we have made a jour­ney of get­ting var­i­ous homes in Trinidad and To­ba­go to be with us at this event.”

Venue part­ner Queen’s Park Crick­et Club com­mit­tee mem­ber Kishore Williams said the or­gan­i­sa­tion was proud to be as­so­ci­at­ed with the event.

“We just came off the heels of the Ju­bilee event with the Ro­man Catholic Church. Pri­or to that we have been in­volved with the Je­ho­vah Wit­ness for many years,” he said.

“This is just a con­tin­u­a­tion of the bless­ings of the Queen’s Park Crick­et Club that is shared. We do just more than crick­et; our work is be­yond the bound­aries of the crick­et field.”

It’s not the first gospel show for Ricky Raghu­nanan of the RR Group of Com­pa­nies who host­ed Fred Ham­mond in 2009.

“When the or­gan­is­ers ap­proached me it was an easy yes,” he said.

“CeCe Winans is one of the most tal­ent­ed gospel per­form­ers in the world. We are blessed to have her per­form in this coun­try.”

CeCe Winans More Than This: Trinidad starts at 6 pm with gates open­ing at 4 pm.

Tick­ets are avail­able on­line at ce­cewinans.com or is­landet­ick­ets.com or in­store at Cache lo­ca­tions na­tion­wide and Maranatha Book­store.

Chil­dren are wel­come to at­tend the event with spe­cial­ly priced tick­ets avail­able for those 12 and un­der.