Two Trinis shine at Grammys

Lee An­na Ma­haraj

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Trinidad and To­ba­go made its mark on the Gram­my stage on Sun­day, as lo­cal tal­ent won awards in clas­si­cal mu­sic and mu­sic video cat­e­gories.

Kwamé Ryan, a 56-year-old Trinida­di­an-Cana­di­an con­duc­tor and for­mer di­rec­tor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, won the Gram­my Award for Best Opera Record­ing for the Hous­ton Grand Opera pro­duc­tion of com­pos­er Jake Heg­gie’s In­tel­li­gence.

“This recog­ni­tion means so much, speak­ing for my­self per­son­al­ly, as a black con­duc­tor. It’s a small de­mo­graph­ic, but get­ting less so one gen­er­a­tion at a time, and mo­ments like these could be so in­spi­ra­tional for the peo­ple who will fol­low,” Ryan said as he ac­cept­ed the Gram­my.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ryan’s for­mer col­league and cur­rent pro­gramme leader at UTT’s Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, Dr Roger Hen­ry, ex­pressed his con­grat­u­la­tions, not­ing that this is not just an achieve­ment for the uni­ver­si­ty but for the wider re­gion.

“It’s a mile­stone for Caribbean art his­to­ry, es­pe­cial­ly in the realm of clas­si­cal mu­sic. It’s a re­minder to the world and to Caribbean stu­dents, and par­tic­u­lar­ly stu­dents and mu­si­cians in Trinidad and To­ba­go, that our mu­si­cians and artists from Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider re­gion op­er­ate at the high­est in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el. This kind of recog­ni­tion ex­pands what young Caribbean mu­si­cians imag­ine to be pos­si­ble,” Dr Hen­ry said.

Hen­ry al­so said the uni­ver­si­ty is proud to see some­one close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts shine on the glob­al stage.

Ryan, the son of the late Dr Sel­wyn Ryan and Joya Gomez, is the first Char­lotte Sym­pho­ny mu­sic di­rec­tor to win a Gram­my.

Al­so win­ning a Gram­my Award was 32-year-old Trin­bag­on­ian pro­duc­er Jo­lene Mendes.
Mendes was part of the pro­duc­tion team be­hind hip hop star Doechii’s hit song Anx­i­ety, which won the Gram­my Award for Best Mu­sic Video.

The project beat out en­tries from Sab­ri­na Car­pen­ter, Sade, OK Go, and Clipse.

Doechii and di­rec­tor James Mack­el were un­avail­able to ac­cept the award, so Mendes stepped for­ward to re­ceive the Gram­my and de­liv­er the ac­cep­tance re­marks.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Doechii and James, our di­rec­tor, could not be here right now, but I would say, as the pro­duc­er, it makes it the best job in the world when we get to work with such in­cred­i­ble cre­atives like them. They’re both once-in-a-life­time tal­ents… This could not have been done with­out the 200 peo­ple who worked on it,” Mendes said.

Mendes, who is based in Los An­ge­les, runs a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny called More Av­enue.

In a so­cial me­dia post, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les con­grat­u­lat­ed Ryan and Mendes.

“Kwame Ryan and Jo­lene Mendes ex­em­pli­fy what is pos­si­ble when tal­ent meets op­por­tu­ni­ty and vi­sion. Your vic­to­ries are mile­stones for our na­tion, and sig­nals of a fu­ture in which Trinidad and To­ba­go’s artists are not on­ly par­tic­i­pants, but lead­ers on the world stage,” she said.