LeAndra to host first show

SINGER LeAndra Head will host her first full-length show titled LeAndra Live at Kaiso Blues Café on Wrightson Road on September 21.

The show will also feature her sister Tylah as well as performers Tehilla Jones and Maya Guerra.

The LeAndra Live show was conceptualised following the Tobago Jazz Festival in April this year. Head received rave reviews at that event and this show is intended to satisfy those who missed out on that performance and urged her to do her own show.

Since graduating from the University of TT in 2017 Head, 25, has performed at various shows but never hosted her own event.

“Many people who have seen me singing at these events have asked me to do my own show. I’m finally taking up the challenge, head said in a media release.”

Head’s studies at the UTT included voice training in classical music and has endeared her to operatic singers Maria Callas, Anna Moffo, Jesse Norman and Leontyne Price. But the musical identity of the young artiste has also been shaped by such familiar names as John Mayer, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Amy Winehouse, Adele and the group Coldplay, the release said.

The talented soprano’s powerful vocals evoke the inspired passion of soul diva Etta James and the melodic phrasings of the first lady of jazz Ella Fitzgerald, both of whom have been very influential to her musical identity.

She has also ventured into the soca music arena along Tylah, with their recent cover of Savannah Grass by Kes.

“Savannah Grass came about during a meeting for my Tobago Jazz performance with Jeanine Ruiz who is my musical director,” Head said.

“We were discussing the set I had planned for that performance and we somehow came up with the idea of doing an arrangement of Savannah Grass. A lot of people really liked it and it was one of the songs mentioned in several newspaper articles so we decided to eventually record it, and it’s gotten really good responses so far.”

Head will perform the soca sample as well as special surprises at the show.

“People can expect to get a wide mix of music from me, it will definitely be a display of my varied background with music and songs that I really enjoy singing and listening to.”

The daughter of photographer Andrea De Silva and former US Marine Corps Master Sergeant Leroy Head Jr, Head has been performing since her early childhood years and throughout primary school. Her vocal abilities have earned her best soloist honours at the popular SanFest music festival for three consecutive years.

Her first public performance was at the popular children’s talent contest Twelve and Under. Just nine at the time, she placed second with a spellbinding rendition of Somewhere over the Rainbow and won the Joy Caesar trophy, which is awarded to the series’ most outstanding vocalist. Her winning ways extended to the St James We Beat festival’s amateur night competition in 2004, with the then ten-year-old beating several adult contestants. That year, at the San Fernando Jazz Festival, she shared the stage with world-renowned South African performer the late Hugh Masekela among other celebrated international acts. She dazzled the crowd with her soulful rendition of Etta James’ signature hit At Last.

Head took a break from performing in her early teens but reignited her passion in earnest four years ago. On a trip to New York in March 2013, she sang at an open mic event at the popular Sugar Bar in Manhattan which is owned by American duo Ashford and Simpson and was immediately asked to return to do her own set on another night, performing to rapturous applause from a completely full house.

In August that year, she achieved probably the pinnacle of her performing career thus far, when she was chosen by the American production company, Living Arts International Inc, to take part in the opera Porgy and Bess in Budapest, Hungary, where she was the youngest member of the cast. Head received an "honourable mention" when she took part in the Trinidad and Tobago Classical Music Development Foundation's 2015 opera competition for her performance of Les Berceaux and Batti Batti O Bel Masetto.

When the opportunity came to share the stage with Tylah at the National Music Festival in 2016, they claimed the Anne Fridal cup for Operatic Duet and she also won best folk choir performance with the UTT choir, where she sang the solo.

Head is promising a night of variety at LeAndra Live which begins at 7.30 pm.