Sto­ry and Pho­tos

by Rishi Ra­goonath

It was a night burst­ing with joy, colour, and pure tal­ent as stu­dents of the Chris Bal­bosa In­sti­tute of Per­form­ing Arts lit up the stage at the Ex­pres­sions of Christ­mas Stu­dent Recital & Soirée, held on De­cem­ber 7 at the San Fer­nan­do North Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

From the very first note, the young per­form­ers de­liv­ered a fes­tive show­case of singing, danc­ing, and mu­si­cian­ship—vi­o­lin, drums, key­board, gui­tar, and more—beam­ing with pride as their fam­i­lies cheered them on.

The evening un­fold­ed with a stream of stand­out mo­ments. The CBI­PA Ju­nior Choir warmed hearts with a live­ly so­ca parang med­ley. Janaya Clarke fol­lowed with smooth, grace­ful vo­cals in Aye Maria, while Char­l­ize Ra­goonath dis­played im­pres­sive con­trol and range in Think of Me from The Phan­tom of the Opera. Gio­van­ni Awardy brought elec­tri­fy­ing en­er­gy to the stage, mak­ing the drums sing with Hold­ing Out for a Hero.

Ewan­si­ha, Zain, Jadri­an, Malachi, and Chris­t­ian de­liv­ered a charm­ing gui­tar en­sem­ble per­for­mance of Jin­gle Bells, and the Chil­dren’s Choir lit up the room with This Lit­tle Light of Mine. Kate­lyn Sir­ju cap­ti­vat­ed the au­di­ence with her heart­felt ren­di­tion of When You Wish Up­on a Star, and Keisha Lee Her­cules brought the crowd to its feet with a pow­er­ful per­for­mance of Try It On My Own. Arielle Lares shone bright­ly with You Say, and the night closed on a tri­umphant high as the CBI­PA Choir and Band per­formed Are You Ready for a Mir­a­cle.

Re­flect­ing on the in­sti­tute’s lega­cy, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Chris­t­ian Bal­bosa said, “CBI­PA has been nur­tur­ing voic­es and build­ing lives for over 35 years. What be­gan as a voice-on­ly train­ing acad­e­my has blos­somed in­to a vi­brant, faith-based per­form­ing arts in­sti­tu­tion of­fer­ing voice, gui­tar, key­board, vi­o­lin, drums, and dance.”

She con­tin­ued, “Root­ed in Chris­t­ian val­ues, CBI­PA em­braces in­di­vid­u­als from di­verse re­li­gious back­grounds, fos­ter­ing not just tal­ent—but a fam­i­ly. Over the decades, CBI­PA has per­formed at count­less events lo­cal­ly and across the Caribbean, while host­ing an­nu­al stu­dent recitals and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach con­certs like Heart Wor­ship.”

The night sparkled from start to fin­ish—a joy­ful cel­e­bra­tion of cre­ativ­i­ty, com­mu­ni­ty, and the bright young stars of CBI­PA.