August 2008


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NOSTALGIA : As National Sinfonia Orchestra Opens New Season

Two compositions by The University of the West Indies graduate, Mark Loquan, were performed at the Queen’s Hall on Sunday 17th August, 2008, by the National Sinfonia Orchestra. The calypsos, Colours Again and Nostalgia, which have been arranged for the pan by Liam Teague and transcribed for orchestra by American Gary Gibson, will be part of the National Sinfonia’s fifth season of performances.

The National Sinfonia Orchestra (NSO), under the musical direction of UWI lecturer Jessel Murray, opened its season with Malaysian concert pianist Sothie Paul-Duraisamy. The concert, under the patronage of his Excellency Professor George Maxwell Richards, represented the third pairing of this celebrated pianist and Trinidad’s foremost symphonic orchestra. The show featured the popular Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue. This work, the first of kind to incorporate the jazz idiom into the Concert Hall, received instant acceptance into the piano repertoire and is one of the most recorded of all piano concertos.

Mrs. Duraisamy has performed in concerts around the world but professes a fondness for performing in Trinidad. The Rhapsody is one of her favourite performing pieces, and she constantly returns to Trinidad to perform for local audiences who are still thrilled with her last Rhapsody – the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini performed with the NSO two years ago. She has performed in Bangalore, India and Perth, Australia in recent times.

Trinidadian clarinettist Kwame Lewis, now resident in Boston, also joined the orchestra to perform the Weber Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra to celebrate the attainment of his Dip. ABRSM in clarinet performance. Lewis is a former music director of the QRC Scout Band. Other works on the programme included the equally popular Elgar Pomp and Circumstance March with the theme that is played at so many graduation ceremonies; and the two Mark Loquan calypsos: Colours Again and Nostalgia. President of Yara Trinidad Limited, Mark Loquan graduated from UWI with a degree in Chemical Engineering. Yara has supported several projects at the University over the years, from bursaries and scholarships to collaborative nitiatives between Yara’s Hanninghof Centre for Plant Nutrition and Environmental Research in Dulmen, Germany and the Department of Food Production at UWI St Augustine.