Trini singer, actor, Kendall Joseph lands spot on Reading Rainbow reboot

Trinidadian singer and actor Kendall Joseph is one of the new hosts of Reading Rainbow Live, which takes the show online to reach children at home during the covid19 pandemic.

Joseph said he hopes his presence will show others like him that they can have big dreams.

The show is a reboot of the original Reading Rainbow, a children's literacy programme designed to develop a love of reading, aimed at children ages four-eight.

Originally the show was hosted by LeVar Burton (Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation). Joseph will form part of a rotating cast of actors from various backgrounds
who will host each episode.

“The premise is that four or five friends meet in their clubhouse when they have free time, they read, relax together, and build stuff together, and they talk about books. Each episode is based on a book. The first book we used was Be A Maker by Katey Howes, and we created something together, or at least filmed it to look like that," Joseph said in a telephone interview with Newsday.

"There’s also dancing, and we have a composer that writes music for each episode. The first episode had three new songs, including the new theme song, and the two songs were based on building something, and they felt like music-video style, with dancing, movement, etc.”

Joseph grew up in Coalmine, Sangre Grande, and said he came to music late in life. He attended the Sangre Grande Hindu Primary School before going to St Mary’s College, Port of Spain.

“I taught myself how to sing after I left St Mary’s College, and then I was connected to (musical director and vocal coach) June Nathaniel and began doing voice lessons with her. Through her I met with soprano Natalia Dopwell, and through her I started doing stuff with the Classical Music Development Foundation of TT (CMDFTT, now Picoplat Music Development Foundation), where I did my first opera as Papageno in The Magic Flute.

"I was about 20 at the time and I got a taste of performing and singing, and I realised that if I wanted to do more, I needed to get training at the next level.”

With Picoplat, he performed in operas such as Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow.

Joseph said growing up in the small village of Coalmine, he didn’t have opportunities to perform or learn about music.

“It was only really after secondary school when I could choose for myself, because of going to St Mary’s as well and being exposed to the opportunities that are in the west, around Port of Spain and stuff like that: that’s when I was able to learn about classical music and that type of thing. That’s when I was able to go out on my own and learn it or reach out to people who could teach about it.”

Joseph applied to the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh (SUNY Plattsburgh), where he studied music for four years.

“As an international student, after you do a degree, you basically get a year to work. I ended up doing a national tour with a choir and got to see like 20 different states, and I realised I wanted to continue doing this.

"I applied to Ball State University to do my masters in vocal performance, which I finished last year. While I was there, I also had a graduate assistantship which paid for my degree, where I taught voice to undergraduate students.

"I was accepted last year to do my doctorate with another graduate assistantship, but I turned it down because I couldn’t see myself doing that much school and making that my career path.

"It turned out to be a good thing, because I wouldn’t have been able to do Reading Rainbow, so things kind of fell into place.”

It was at SUNY Plattsburgh that Joseph also developed his dance skills, as he participated in many clubs and student organisations, including being president of Club International, where he helped organise the first pageant for international students; vice president of the Korean Association where he taught K-pop dancing; and a member of the Indian, Pakistani, Japanese and Vietnamese clubs, among others.

As an undergraduate, he also formed a band called Izland Tonik with some of his classmates, including an Antiguan drummer, with the rest being US students.

“Only one of the others had exposure to Caribbean music. I will say that soca music gets the crowd moving. If people had never heard Caribbean music and we played soca or reggae, the soca music was what people would react to.”

Joseph said he was specifically asked to audition for Reading Rainbow by creative director Amy Guglielmo, who lives near SUNY Plattsburgh and would regularly attend shows put on by undergraduate students at the school.

“She ended up seeing all my shows while I was in undergrad. She also saw my band perform at some events. Normally you only get a minute to audition, but in this case it was like I was auditioning for years. She reached out to me last September to find out if I wanted to audition for a children’s TV show, and it was only while talking to the producer that I realised it was for Reading Rainbow.”

The programme is produced by Ohana Pictures in partnership with Buffalo Toronto Public Media, which also runs
the TV channel WNED PBS, where the original Reading Rainbow was developed.

The show airs on Looped Live, a virtual platform which incorporates on-screen chat rooms with a livestream. Children can send in book reviews and videos of themselves dancing to be aired on the show. The first 35 minutes are recorded and streamed, and in the second 25 minutes, children can log into virtual rooms and interact with the hosts and meet the author of the featured book or the creative director to learn how to build a project that was featured on the show.

“It’s to keep children engaged. It was made for how things were during the pandemic: a bunch of children were home, not really interacting with anyone, that type of thing.

"I didn’t know what to expect when they said it would be live, but it was so nice to see how the children enjoyed the episode and how they were interacting, and even during one of the dance segments the Looped Live crew put up videos of children dancing along to what we were doing during the episodes, it was really fun to see.”

Joseph said being on the show was important to him because his parents encouraged him to read.

"It's a great opportunity for children from the Caribbean to be able to see someone that looks like them on the screen.

"Reading was important for me growing up, because my parents didn’t buy many toys for me, but my mother was always quick to buy a book for me to read if I asked her. That did help me to dream, it opened my imagination and allowed me to believe I could really go out there and do whatever I wanted to do and be whatever I wanted to be successful in.”

It will air once a month for its first ten-month run. The hope eventually is to have a weekly show which can be aired on a streaming platform.

The show costs US$9.99 to view online, with increasing tiers for those who want to participate, buy merchandise, etc. For more information visit https://readingrainbowlive.com/