Sto­ries and pho­tos by Wes­ley Gib­bings

Every­thing in­clud­ing and be­tween bake and shark at Mara­cas Bay, a net­work­ing ses­sion with T&T cre­atives and me­dia, and a vis­it to Mu­si­cal In­stru­ments of T&T Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MITTCO) were re­cent­ly crammed in­to a hec­tic sched­ule for vis­it­ing so­cial me­dia con­tent pro­duc­ers host­ed by the Mu­sic Unit of Glob­al T&T.

Be­tween No­vem­ber 26 and De­cem­ber 1, Glob­al T&T—the state agency charged with pro­mot­ing busi­ness and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties in the coun­try—pre­sent­ed dif­fer­ent com­po­nents of T&T mu­sic and cul­tur­al life to sev­er­al US, UK, and Caribbean so­cial me­dia “in­flu­encers.”

For in­stance, on day one of a five-day “mu­sic and cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ence” en­ti­tled In­ward Mis­sion, the group was in­tro­duced to re­tired crick­eter Dwayne Bra­vo’s Stu­dio 47 and in­ter­act­ed with sev­er­al T&T jour­nal­ists and cre­atives at a “Mu­sic Net­work­ing” event at the NA­PA Ho­tel.

The Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra (NSSO), un­der the ba­ton of Dr Mia Gor­mandy, and The Na­tion­al Phil­har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra (NPO) treat­ed the gath­er­ing to a treat of high-qual­i­ty per­for­mances.

Melis­sa Jimenez, gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Mu­sic Unit, said the pro­gramme of events was in­tend­ed to strength­en “our path­way to ex­port­ing lo­cal mu­sic”, and am­pli­fy T&T sto­ries while “cre­at­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for our cre­ators.”

Sta­cy Adams, Deputy CEO of Glob­al T&T al­so ad­dressed the event and wel­comed the over­seas par­tic­i­pants in­clud­ing pro­lif­ic Tik­Tok­er Alex Cas­sidy, US-based Dane Tay­lor of Caribbean Elite, cul­tur­al en­tre­pre­neur Shel­ley Wor­rell, film­mak­er Jan­luk Stanis­las, and pod­cast­er/per­former, Zen­yari­ta.

Dec­o­rat­ed mu­sic pro­duc­er/broad­cast­er, Ken­ny Phillips, who al­so serves as chair­man of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) brought greet­ings and called for a more promi­nent place for the cre­ative out­puts of T&T both at home and abroad.

Oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties in the group’s hec­tic sched­ule in­clud­ed a vis­it to MITTCO where they wit­nessed the steel­pan pro­duc­ing process.

From there, the group trav­elled to the Pur­ple Room Stu­dio in St James and end­ed the day with an en­counter with the Laven­tille Rhythm Sec­tion.

There was al­so a trip to Paramin for parang, lunch (bake and shark) at Mara­cas Bay, and the chance to bear wit­ness to the Sin­gle Pan Panora­ma Fi­nals at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

“Our main goal with this In­ward Mis­sion,” Jimenez said in a Glob­al T&T so­cial me­dia post, “is to show­case Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mu­sic” with the in­vit­ed con­tent pro­duc­ers de­vel­op­ing ma­te­r­i­al to re­flect the ex­pe­ri­ence.

“By reach­ing these dif­fer­ent (in­ter­na­tion­al) au­di­ences, they (con­tent cre­ators) will be tap­ping in­to their dif­fer­ent mar­kets.

“The mis­sion is to sell Trinidad and To­ba­go to the world. In­ward Mis­sion was meant to rep­re­sent just one im­por­tant com­po­nent of the process.”