JOSLYNNE SEALEY
SUPERWOMAN SEALEY
By Sean Douglas
Express Woman
February 24, 2002
Page 9
She wants to go home for a rest. She is tired from the late night before and the early start that morning, but still gives quick-fire and lengthy answers when approached at the Music Festival.
Joslynne Sealey, a superwoman of the local music scene, is for the first time this year organising the event. Being showcased are singing solos, duets, and choirs of children or adults, variously performing classical, folk, gospel and parang, plus instrumentalists playing piano, violin, recorder, saxophone, trumpet, steelpan, clarinet and trombone.
She explained how after being involved in almost every local forum for music, she is now organising the current 25th biennial Music Festival, dubbed its golden jubilee. Even before heading the Music Festival this year, she recalls having spent a lifetime immersed in music, starting as a young girl performing at the festival decades ago.
Having done a degree in Performance Voice at McGill University, Canada, followed by a diploma in Education, majoring in music, Sealey then taught music at Bishop Anstey High School, gave private voice coaching, and helped various music competitions.
Even before the start of this hectic Music Festival, sealey had been very busy for Carnival. "I judge calypso contests like National Flour Mills and Republic Bank although I haven't done the NCC (National Carnival Commission) calypso shows this year. I judged the North Zone Panorama, on three different nights in the panyards. For Jouvert I judged the Neville Jules Bomb Contest and the Ray Holman Competition on Monday night. I find time to go to the panyards, and to go and see the Carnival Kings and Queens."
Reflecting on last week's mixed quartets rendering Gershwin's Love Walked In, Sealey effused: "It's really nice. I am thoroughly enjoying the festival. It's worth all the hard work. It's taken two years to plan. We have to find the music, the adjudicator and the syllabus for people to look at for about seven to eight months before. You have to get a venue and sponsors, and open an office a year before the event to take the entries and to sell the music for people to start to learn. It's a tremendous amount of work, ongoing."
But becoming a judge was a sort of home-coming. "I became involved in the Music Festival in the 1950s as a young girl. There were 200 of us singing Where The Bees Suck."
She then married and followed her husband abroad on his medical studies. The marriage did not last, but it did produce her daughter, Alicia Sealey, who grew up to become a Miss Trinidad and Tobago beauty queen.
Upon her return to Trinidad, Sealey pursued voice training, including taking exams, eventually reaching grade eight.
She recalled, when she was in her thirties, once meeting Dr Eric Williams who was presenting her an award on stage at the music Festival. She asked him about getting a government scholarship to study music. Williams, now deceased, directed her to the Ministry of Education, but she was turned away. She then wrote to the Prime Minister thanking him for his support, stating her ambition was not to be.
But she recalled: "Dr Williams debated the matter in Parliament and then in 1970 I got a full scholarship to McGill University, which is more than I was expecting. I came back in 1975 with a degree and a Dip Ed in Music."
Returning again to Trinidad, Sealey became a music teacher at Bishop Anstey until her retirement in 1991.
She added: "Since my retirement I have kept very involved in culture. I was awarded the Humming Bird (Gold) Medal in 1991.
"I have judged calypso and pan. I was the principal singer of the Trinidad and Tobago Operatic Company. I have judged all the youth talent shows on television, including Twelve and Under, plus Best Village,and have worked in steelband festivals that played classical music."
Sealey has given private voice coaching for 22 years and recently stopped to devote all her energies to making the Music Festival a success. "The festival has been here for 50 years and it is something I'd like to see continue, but I need help from volunteers. I would not like to see it falter. This is my first time as manager. It's very stimulating, to know that you are providing a platform for the youth and the aspiring musicians. We need it. We have tremendous talent coming through all the time, one of the positive things about Trinidad and Tobago, something that we can be proud of. Not everybody in Trinidad and Tobago has fallen by the wayside. There are a lot of kids working quietly behind the scenes."