BIG SHOW FOR SPARROW

Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­[email protected]

The late Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co will be ho­n­oured with a na­tion­al Cel­e­bra­tion of Life on Oc­to­ber 16, with the pub­lic in­vit­ed to pay their re­spects dur­ing two days of view­ing ahead of the cer­e­mo­ny.

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

The Gov­ern­ment, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Fran­cis­co fam­i­ly, is or­gan­is­ing the state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al and Cel­e­bra­tion of Life for Fran­cis­co, known world­wide as Mighty Spar­row and wide­ly re­gard­ed as the Ca­lyp­so King of the World.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, the trib­ute will ho­n­our Spar­row’s im­mense con­tri­bu­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al her­itage, Caribbean mu­sic and the gen­er­a­tions of peo­ple in­flu­enced by his work at home and abroad.

Spar­row’s body was repa­tri­at­ed from New York on Oc­to­ber 6. He was re­ceived at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port by his son, Cyril San­cho Fran­cis­co, ac­com­pa­nied by Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin and min­istry of­fi­cials.

The min­istry has asked mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­frain from tak­ing pho­tographs or record­ing videos dur­ing the pub­lic view­ings, in keep­ing with a re­quest from the Fran­cis­co fam­i­ly.

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

The pro­ces­sion will com­prise three seg­ments: 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, school rep­re­sen­ta­tives and stake­hold­ers from the Car­ni­val and cul­tur­al sec­tors are ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate. Se­lec­tions from Spar­row’s ex­ten­sive mu­si­cal cat­a­logue will be played through­out the pro­ces­sion.

A trib­ute pro­gramme will fol­low at NA­PA from 1.30 pm to 3.30 pm, fea­tur­ing steel or­ches­tras, moko jumbies, tra­di­tion­al mas per­form­ers, cul­tur­al pre­sen­ta­tions and oth­er com­mem­o­ra­tive trib­utes.

The min­istry said arrange­ments are al­so be­ing made for mem­bers of the pub­lic to view the Cel­e­bra­tion of Life from the Grand Stand at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Fur­ther de­tails are ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced.

Mean­while, the pub­lic can con­tin­ue sign­ing 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 diplo­mat­ic mis­sions in New York, Mi­a­mi, Lon­don, Wash­ing­ton and Toron­to.

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

Spar­row died in New York on Sep­tem­ber 27 at the age of 91. His fam­i­ly said he passed away peace­ful­ly, sur­round­ed by loved ones, fol­low­ing a brief ill­ness.