Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Jour­nal­ist, broad­cast­er, com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al and singer Ray­mond Ed­wards has died af­ter a pro­longed ill­ness.

His wife, Des Con­nor, an­nounced his pass­ing on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, say­ing, “My heart left me this morn­ing. My beau­ti­ful, lov­ing and fun­ny Ray­mond Ed­wards has passed.”

Ed­wards spent decades in lo­cal me­dia and fre­quent­ly lent his voice to ad­ver­tise­ments and as a com­men­ta­tor dur­ing Car­ni­val broad­casts.

He be­gan singing at age 17 af­ter meet­ing his mu­si­cal men­tor, the late Chester­ton Ali, who guid­ed him to the first of many Trinidad and To­ba­go Mu­sic Fes­ti­val cham­pi­onships. Through Ali, Ed­wards trained un­der opera singer and tu­tor Lor­na Mae May­ers, who helped shape his clas­si­cal foun­da­tion.

Dur­ing a per­form­ing ca­reer span­ning more than 20 years, he shared the stage with nu­mer­ous lo­cal artistes and sang for glob­al Heads of State and dig­ni­taries. He of­ten said his great­est joy was per­form­ing for his fel­low Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

In a state­ment, the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go said it joins the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in mourn­ing “vet­er­an broad­cast­er and ac­claimed vo­cal­ist Ray­mond Ed­wards,” whose voice res­onat­ed across the na­tion’s air­waves and stages for more than two decades.

MATT de­scribed him as warm, gra­cious, a gem and wide­ly re­spect­ed, with a “sharp, crisp and in­stant­ly recog­nis­able voice” that was trust­ed and well-loved. The as­so­ci­a­tion ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, friends, and col­leagues, say­ing his con­tri­bu­tions to broad­cast­ing and the per­form­ing arts will be re­mem­bered.

The Min­istry of Cul­ture said Ed­wards’ in­volve­ment in the cul­tur­al sec­tor ex­tend­ed be­yond per­for­mance to ad­vo­ca­cy, as he sup­port­ed ini­tia­tives that strength­ened cre­ative plat­forms and en­cour­aged emerg­ing tal­ent. Col­leagues re­called his pro­fes­sion­al­ism and gen­eros­i­ty, of­ten con­tribut­ing mean­ing­ful­ly with­out seek­ing recog­ni­tion.

“The min­istry recog­nis­es that a thriv­ing cul­tur­al sec­tor is sus­tained not on­ly through pol­i­cy and in­sti­tu­tions but through in­di­vid­u­als who ac­tive­ly cham­pi­on the arts… Mr Ed­wards ex­em­pli­fied this role,” the state­ment said.

Jour­nal­ists and me­dia col­leagues al­so took to so­cial me­dia to ex­press shock and sad­ness, de­scrib­ing him as a “great tal­ent” and “a re­al­ly good soul.”

Sev­er­al said they were “lost for words,” while oth­ers re­flect­ed on his long health bat­tle and the im­pact he had with­in the fra­ter­ni­ty. One de­scribed his pass­ing as “heart­break­ing,” adding, “He fought the good fight.”

Con­nor asked for time be­fore an­nounc­ing fu­ner­al arrange­ments.