Mighty Sparrow’s funeral set for October 16

The late Mighty Spar­row will be ho­n­oured with a na­tion­al Cel­e­bra­tion of Life on Oc­to­ber 16, with mem­bers of the pub­lic get­ting two op­por­tu­ni­ties to pay their re­spects ahead of the cer­e­mo­ny.

The Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment an­nounced on Fri­day that pub­lic view­ing of the ca­lyp­so leg­end will take place from 10 am to 6 pm on Oc­to­ber 13 and 14 at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) and the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), re­spec­tive­ly.

The Gov­ern­ment is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Fran­cis­co fam­i­ly to or­gan­ise the State-As­sist­ed Fu­ner­al and Cel­e­bra­tion of Life for the late Slinger Fran­cis­co, bet­ter known as Mighty Spar­row, who was wide­ly re­gard­ed as the Ca­lyp­so King of the World.

The min­istry said the trib­ute would recog­nise Spar­row’s con­tri­bu­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al her­itage and Caribbean mu­sic, as well as his in­ter­na­tion­al in­flu­ence and the gen­er­a­tions touched by his work.

Spar­row was repa­tri­at­ed from New York to Trinidad and To­ba­go on Oc­to­ber 6. His son, Cyril San­cho Fran­cis­co, ac­com­pa­nied by Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin and min­istry of­fi­cials, re­ceived him at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The min­istry is ask­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic not to take pho­tographs or record videos dur­ing the pub­lic view­ings, in keep­ing with a re­quest from the Fran­cis­co fam­i­ly.

The Oc­to­ber 16 pro­gramme will be­gin with a pro­ces­sion at 10 am from In­de­pen­dence Square in Port of Spain, mov­ing along Fred­er­ick Street be­fore con­clud­ing at NA­PA.

The pro­ces­sion will fea­ture three stages: a Na­tion­al Farewell at In­de­pen­dence Square, a Peo­ple’s and Cul­tur­al Farewell along Fred­er­ick Street, and a Cer­e­mo­ni­al Farewell at NA­PA.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic, na­tion­al schools and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Car­ni­val and cul­tur­al in­dus­tries are ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate. Se­lect­ed record­ings from Spar­row’s ex­ten­sive mu­si­cal cat­a­logue will al­so form part of the pro­ces­sion.

A trib­ute pro­gramme will fol­low at NA­PA from 1.30 pm to 3.30 pm, fea­tur­ing steel or­ches­tras, Moko Jumbies, tra­di­tion­al mas­quer­ade, cul­tur­al per­form­ers and oth­er trib­ute in­stal­la­tions.

The min­istry said arrange­ments were al­so be­ing made for mem­bers of the pub­lic to view the Cel­e­bra­tion of Life at the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, with fur­ther de­tails to be an­nounced.

Mean­while, mem­bers of the pub­lic can con­tin­ue to sign the con­do­lence book, “One Last Note…for the King of Ca­lyp­so”, un­til Oc­to­ber 15.

The book is avail­able from 10 am to 4 pm at the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment’s of­fices at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Com­plex, NA­PA un­til Oc­to­ber 14, SAPA, the Shaw Park Com­plex in To­ba­go, all 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion head of­fices and Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mis­sions in New York, Mi­a­mi, Lon­don, Wash­ing­ton and Toron­to.

A vir­tu­al con­do­lence book is al­so avail­able through the min­istry’s web­site, mc­cd.gov.tt.

The min­istry said Ben­jamin had con­tin­ued to meet with the Fran­cis­co fam­i­ly and the co­or­di­nat­ing team to fi­nalise arrange­ments for the event, in­clud­ing cer­e­mo­ni­al re­quire­ments, pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion, trans­porta­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and se­cu­ri­ty.

Plan­ning meet­ings were held at NA­PA on Oc­to­ber 2, 7 and 8, with a fur­ther se­cu­ri­ty meet­ing tak­ing place on Fri­day in­volv­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the rel­e­vant se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

The Gov­ern­ment said it re­mained com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that Spar­row, one of the coun­try’s most cel­e­brat­ed cul­tur­al icons, re­ceived a dig­ni­fied na­tion­al farewell.