Winifred Atwell's relatives welcome Queen's Hall honour: It has been a long time coming

GOVERNMENT’S approval to name the auditorium of Queen’s Hall after renowned pianist Winifred Atwell has been met with pride by relatives, who believe that given Atwell’s contribution to the musical landscape, this should have happened sooner.

The naming ceremony will take place at Queen’s Hall in St Ann’s on September 23, followed by an Ivory and Steel concert that will feature classical music from Atwell’s album of the same name, with a Trini flavour.

“I think it's wonderful that she is being recognised in this way,” Atwell’s cousin Helen Atwell-Koo told Newsday in a phone interview.

“She has put TT on the map in so many positive ways. It's good when we can appreciate our talent and start recognising our icons and sons and daughters of the soil. I was a child when Winnie would visit, and I remember grandpa throwing parties for her at his home in Jubilee Street, Tunapuna. We were always in such awe because she was so fancy. I remember her dancing with grandpa.”

Nicole Charles, who lives in the UK, told Newsday, “Winnie was my late grandmother's (Emelda Atwell) sister. Her being honoured like this has been a long time coming. Winnie's music is adored by Australians,” so much so that there is a fan page that was started by Australian piano teacher and psychologist Harold Hanlon over 12 years ago. The page features all of Atwell's music.

"I met her when I was 23," Hanlon told Newsday in a phone interview.

"She was deciding to return to Trinidad after her husband died...

"I wrote to her and asked to meet her before she left and she invited me and my parents to her home and allowed me play her grand piano in her presence.

"Then she asked me to play some classical pieces and gave me a autographed photo of herself.

"I had my camera with me to take photo of her but I was so star-struck that I wasn't even able to ask her if I could."

Hanlon said his parents were big fans of Atwell and his mother was overwhelmed because there are not many celebrities who would invite fans to their homes.

"My parents told me about one of her concerts they attended and there were encores after encores."

He said it was not until he looked at an episode of a TV show called This is Your Life in which Atwell was featured, that he understood why his parents were so hooked on Atwell's playing.

"She was talking about her life and I was caught. Then I got why my parents loved her so much...

"I still can't believe that I was invited to her home and played her piano. She was such a genuinely nice person."

Atwell was born in 1915 in Tunapuna and got her first formal piano lesson when she was two and a half years old. She started playing when she was four and by eight years old she became the official organist at the St Charles RC Church. She eventually left TT for better opportunities for herself and made a musical name for herself in the Europe and Australia.

General manager of Queen’s Hall Garfield George said since the announcement, his phone has been "blowing up" with messages and calls lauding Queen’s Hall for that decision.

“I have been receiving a lot of calls, e-mails, WhatsApp messages from people locally, regionally and internationally saying it's inspirational and they want us to do more of this. It means a lot to the art fraternity and I hope it will inspire the wider society.”

He said it is ironic that the management team was planning the Ivory and Steel concert before government took a decision to honour Atwell in this special way.

“The Government, on August 22, decided to name the auditorium after Winifred Atwell; we weren't even thinking about that when we were planning the concert…She had produced a show of the same name in 1969 at Queen’s Hall together with the Pan Am North Jet Stars, and her album Ivory and Steel was produced right here at Queen’s Hall.”

George said coming out of the covid19 pandemic, from 2022 Queen’s Hall started hosting a programme called Together, on September 23.

“The whole idea at that time was to celebrate the coming back of our patrons and producers after the pandemic and doing something they hadn't done in a while…In 2023, we decided to have an event called Ivory and Steel; the idea came out of us wanting to utilise the four pianos we have – a Bösendorfer grand piano, a Stein piano and two upright pianos.”

The idea, he said, was to put on a show marrying the music of the pianos and the steelpan.

“At the time we didn't realise we needed so much time to practise, so we decided to plan it for 2024,” which, coincidently, coincided with the decision to honour Atwell.

“It is a really important time, not only for Queen's Hall, but for the entire nation to have some sort of inspiration with all that is happening in society.”

He said Atwell’s accomplishments, especially at the time she would have achieved her feat, is something to be celebrated.

He said a cabinet note requesting the tribute was sent to cabinet via the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts.

“We felt that it was only fitting that someone of her stature who would have made a number of significant achievements at home and abroad should be honoured.

“In 1969 she received the Hummingbird Gold medal for her contribution to world music, and what she achieved later as a woman, a black woman, a Caribbean woman, was a lot to achieve in the UK at the time she did…in a place that was very colonial…

Her roots always remain with her.”

While Atwell’s name remains well known in the UK, George said it is unfortunate that not many people in TT know of her.

“We seldom recognise our unsung hero, of which she is one, so we find that our young people, unless they study the arts or are part of music festival and her name comes up and they are paying attention, they will hardly know who she is. Even the average Trinbagonian does not know about her.”

He said the Queen’s Hall board sought family consent before moving forward with the tribute.

“We knew she didn't any kids, so we spoke to different producers and we were fortunate that some people put us on to both maternal and paternal relatives, who are going to be here at the opening just to say something about their experiences with Winnie.

“They are very proud of her achievements.”

He said this year's Together programme began on September 20, with a partnership between Queen’s Hall and the Japanese embassy featuring a showcase in Japanese culture and followed by a series of events leading up to the Ivory and Steel concert.

“The concert will feature Chantal Esdelle (pianist and educator), Sean Sutherland (classical pianist) from Canada, and Alan Cooper. Following that, outside the hall there will be some local surprises. So it will be classical inside and a little boogie woogie outside.”

Esdelle told Newsday although she was not influenced by Atwell’s style in the technical sense of the word, she and Atwell are intrinsically connected.

“Winifred Atwell is from Tunapuna, and I grew up in Tunapuna. Her house in St Augustine, Win Villa, when she died, it was occupied by Pan Pipers Music School, which was run by Louise McIntosh who also from Tunapuna. I went to that music school while it was in that house, so we are connected in that way.”

Esdelle described Atwell as a phenomenal pianist with a flawless technique.

About Winifred Atwell

As a young woman Winifred Atwell worked in her father’s chemist shop, and he insisted that she took a degree in pharmacy. However, in her spare time she entertained friends and continued to take part in charity concerts.

After performing in Trinidad’s Services Club during World War II, Atwell went to New York to study piano technique with the celebrated classical pianist Alexander Borovsky. In 1946 she came to Britain, determined to become a concert pianist, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. She supported herself by working in the evenings playing the piano in dance halls and clubs.

Atwell’s breakthrough came in 1948 at a charity concert at the London Casino. There, she captivated the audience with her ragtime music and took several curtain calls. In 1951 she signed a contract with Decca, and in 1952 she appeared in the first Royal Variety Performance for the new queen, Elizabeth II. Atwell closed her act with Britannia Rag, a number she had composed specially for the occasion, and which reached Number Five in the pop charts.

By 1954, she become the first recording-artist from Britain to have three hits selling one million records: Black and White Rag (1952), Let’s Have a Party (1953), and Let’s Have Another Party (1954). Between 1952 and 1960 she had no less than 11 top ten hits and at the end of the 20th century she was recognised as the most successful female instrumentalist ever to have featured in the British pop charts.

Despite her success with ragtime music, she never lost sight of her initial desire to become a concert pianist. In 1954, her recording of the 18th variation from Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini reached Number Nine in the pop charts. On November 28 of that same year, Atwell packed the Royal Albert Hall as a soloist, accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, playing Grieg’s piano concerto and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

Atwell died in Sydney on February 27, 1983.
(Information courtesy Queen's Hall)