Monday 10th may 2004 - The public is invited to attend one in this series of Cultural Conversations: A Semi-Lime hosted by The UWI Centre for The Creative and Festival Arts, featuring musical improvisations and collaborations by Indian Musician Remo Fernandes, The UWI Ensemble, Chantal Esdelle, Rikki Jai, Wayne Bruno and other musicians at the UWI School of Continuing Studies Auditorium, Gordon Street, St. Augustine from 6.30 p.m. Admission Free - All are invited. Musicians specially invited to attend.

This project involves the making of new music out of the interaction of artistes from India and the Caribbean. The project is being worked out through a series of unique in-the-field experiments, as musicians who do not know each other but share similar long-duration histories marked by the political phenomena that have determined the 20th century, encounter each other to see what they can do. The music generated will itself have widespread interest.

Here is an attempt at taking south-south collaboration into the realm of musical composition and performance. A film on the entire process will be a record of this extraordinary exploration.

Remo Fernandes of Goa, India's foremost rock-pop artist, is eminently qualified to pioneer this process. He has made popular music for over 25 years. While he sings mainly in English, his flute and his distinctive scatting style evokes numerous local folk forms from Western India. His influences range from Konkani folksongs and chants to the Portuguese mando (ballad) to Indian classical music to Euro-American rock. In addition to English, Konkani and Hindi, Remo also sings in Portuguese and French. As a Goan, he was brought up against a backdrop of music from Spain, Portugal, Latin America and even the Caribbean, making him somewhat different from the conventional Indian classical/traditional musician who normally represents India abroad.

Remo composes his own scores, his own lyrics, and plays a variety of instruments. He performs live without lip sync or backing tracks, practically one of the very few who do this. Locally, he is also known for his humorous and incisive socio-political commentary, much like the Trinidadian calypsonians. Accompanied by Tejaswini Niranjana who conceptualized the project, and will establish the network and facilitate conversations he is spending about three weeks in Trinidad (after two weeks in Jamaica) conversing and playing with a range of music makers, talking to scholars of reggae, dancehall, chutney, pan and calypso, and working on a new piece of music.

Rapso Fest - Princes Town, Trnindad, Tuesday 11th May 2004.

Rapso Fest continues with Lecture Demonstration at Princes Town Library. For further details/info, call: (868) 620-2966 or (868) 681-4373.