Violaceous Euphonia and the Scarlet Ibis

We've been here for over two weeks now. There is a really thriving art and music scene here. Almost daily we meet more artists: painters, musicians, potters, writers, film-makers and more. Rory and Bunty took us to a concert at the National Academy of Performing Artists for a concert of the faculty and some visiting faculty from the US. We followed that up with a trip a few blocks away to the “pan yard” of Phase II, one of the favorite Pan drum Orchestras. They were in “practice-mode” preparing for the first phase of competition which will culminate in a huge show, Pandemonium, in the main open air stadium downtown Port of Spain in less than a month. Pan orchestras are something really exceptional about Trinidad. They are made up of up to 125 players playing anywhere from two to nine drums at a time. Each drummer's drums are positioned into a metal rack on wheels. They practice their one song that they will compete with each year, specially composed for them, over and over again; maybe as many as 100 times a night; night after night for about a month in advance. The leaders are celebrities in their own right, with stories of last minute 'saves' in the competition. There is a documentary called Pan Odyssey which tells about this phenomenal thing.

On the other end of the day we wake surrounded by bird song and sip our coffee with a binocular in one hand. I've mentioned the hummingbird but some of the other highlights have been the Turquoise Tanager, the Orange shouldered Parrot, Violaceous Euphonia (love that name) and the Toucan. But the most spectacular bird on the island is the National bird of Trinidad, the Scarlet Ibis. To see them we booked a tour into the Caroni Swamp where the birds come at sunset to roost in a particular grove of trees. Thousands of bright red large birds all congregating on a small green arborial island. The world's largest Christmas Tree! At the base of the island, the skirt, are flocks of the Snowy and the Cattle Egret, both intense white. Place this all against a steel blue sky! WOW!

Recent paintings:
Ruby Topaz, 36 x 36 acrylic

Trinidad II, 36 x 36 acrylic

Rainforest, 16 x 20




Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 28, 2015 at 4:50 PM

    Hi Jeanne and Yata. Trinidad sounds amazing--your descriptions are lovely. And so are your paintings. I've long wanted to go to Trinidad this time of year for the steel drum competition. You've renewed my desire!

    Please tell Yata thank you for the CD. I've been listening to it in the car and really enjoing it. Your voice sounds so great Yata!

    Keep soaking up all that is on offer in Trinidad you two. And keep blogging about it for those of us back here in the frozen north.

    Best regards,
    Bette

    ReplyDelete
  2. trvlwthjyJanuary 15, 2020 at 8:23 AM

    Hey Bette, have you since made it to Trinidad? We are going back Feb 1, 2020 for three weeks. WE'll be there for the Pan Drum Semi-finals. We're intentionally avoiding the finals- too intense.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

With Love from W.I. To WI

Image
Trinidad I Yes, we are in the West Indies, Trinidad to be exact, having come from frosty Wisconsin (WI) we are lavishing in tropical warmth, barefoot. Sorry to incite any envy, but how else can I tell you what we are doing without mentioning this. The weather is one of the main reasons we leave WI in the winter. But the weather has been interesting here. It's supposed to be the beginning of the dry season but instead the rainy season is lingering into January. What that means is that its been raining a lot! A couple days this week it rained in sheets most of the day and all night. The ground is soggy and the air is humid to say the least. We tried to go for a walk but got rained on and came back to our sweet cottage. The cottage is situated on a four acre tropical garden in the center of the country, in the countryside. We have a deck off the kitchen which looks out towards the hilly grasslands and to the mountain range in the north. Trinidad is also a bird watcher's
Read more

JoY in Joyland

P hase II Pan Groove Steel Orchestra, one of the leading steel pan orchestras of Trinidad was practicing, preparing for the first phase of competition which culminated in the national Steel Pan Championship, Panorama, in the Queen's Park Savannah in the capital city, Port of Spain. Pan orchestras are one of two reasons to put Trinidad on a life’s bucket list -- the extravagant bird population being the other reason.   The Steel Pan drum was created in Trinidad, originally from the 50 gallon oil barrels, cut, welded and tuned to create individual notes. They evolved into a full range of ‘instruments’ including smaller tenor drums with higher pitched multiple notes, double tenors, guitars, cellos and more — all steel head drums. Each large steel pan group consists of up to 125 players using anywhere from two to nine drums at a time. Each drummer's instrument is on a metal rack with the larger multiple drums on wheeled carts. In the pan yards, every night through Jan and most
Read more

Provence France Oct 2019

Image
Perils and Pleasures of Travel "Sir, it doesn't appear that you'll be able to board this flight", the courteous American Airline staff informed my husband. "Why" he asked with alarm in his voice! "Because you need three months until expiration of your passport to enter France, sir".  The ticketing agent concurred and rebooked us on the next day flight later in the afternoon to enable him to get an expedited passport and still catch our flight. The upside was that it was a more direct route than our current flight .Uncharacteristically, for me, I said with abundant optimism, " Let's just be tourists in Minneapolis for the day instead of France, while we wait."  We had met in Minneapolis and lived there together for a few years back in the late 70's, so although we knew the city well, we hadn't really done the tourist activities that we found ourselves indulging in that day such as the Lake Harriet Trolley Car Ride or a
Read more