By ANGELA PIDDUCK Tuesday, November 17 2009

“ALTHOUGH music is a great part of my life, my family is my life” says Lenore Mahase Samaroo, who was taught the piano as a toddler by her mother the late Anna Mahase (senior). “She taught all seven of her children the basics, so that by age four I went to my first teacher Mrs Ethel Valere-Lambie.”

It is very difficult to encapsulate this very dignified woman’s musical life. She has retired three times in 44 years as Music Mistress of St Augustine Girls High School, (SAGHS), and remains musical director of the St Augustine Chorale, comprising alumnae of the school and voices of male friends.

She is currently preparing the Chorale for its “Silver Anniversary Chorale Classics” on Saturday at the Curepe Presbyterian Church, Lyndon Street, Curepe, from 5 pm. Part proceeds will go towards the church. Secure parking is available at the Curepe Presbyterian School (next door) and tickets are available from the church or choir members.

The programme is made up of pieces of music from the Chorale’s annual concerts over the past 25 years. The first half comprises classical, religious, spirituals, and popular music from Les Miserables and Abba, and a Guyanese folk song. The second part comprises Christmas music, ending with Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World”.

Mahase-Samaroo, a former student of Naparima Girls’ High School, Arima High School and St Joseph Convent, Port-of-Spain, was the first West Indian to win a House Exhibition from Trinity College of Music, London, at age ten. That paid her music tuition locally for one year. From age six, she was organist for Guaico Presbyterian School where her parents were principal and vice principal and for many years she was organist for Morton Memorial Presbyterian Church in Guaico, where she was honoured last week Sunday for long and devoted service to the church and community .

Mahase-Samaroo continued her studies in music at Mc Gill University in Montreal, majoring in Music Performers. She remained there as accompanist at Montreal Girls’ High School and Mc Gill where she also gave many piano recitals, and taught students for university examinations. For three years she conducted a choir for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) made up of Trinidadians and other university students, which performed on CBC’s monthly Calling the West Indies programme. She also gave a recital in Vermont, United States.

When she returned home, Mahase was invited by the late Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams and Carlton Comma of the Public Library to take part in a concert at the Library in aid of the children’s section. She was also the first Trinidadian pianist invited to appear in a series of inaugural concerts at Queen’s Hall.

The next stop for this musical genius was to visit her eldest brother, the late Dr Cyril Mahase, in Birmingham, England. There she was taken under the wing of Dr Desmond Mc Mahon, head of music in the City of Birmingham.

“I played for all his lectures, made recordings which teachers use up to now, and had the opportunity to play with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra as pianist at the annual concerts conducted by Dr Mc Mahon,” she recalled.

In February 1956, Mahase joined the staff of St Augustine Girls’ High School as Music Mistress where she introduced a full music programme throughout the entire year — teaching music, singing, theory of music, instruments in the orchestra.

“We had a whole orchestra plus a complete steel orchestra, and was the first ever school to get its own pans, and first high school choir in this country accompanied by a steel orchestra — Cordettes — at the school and also at Queen’s Hall for Carols & Steel.”

Breaking new ground, Mahase-Samaroo wrote music scores for SAGHS pannists.

“This brought band leaders to the school to see what I was doing, they had heard that the girls were all reading music to play the pans. That was part of my teaching in the high school, theory of music so they can learn to read and play instruments including pan, guitar, cuatro, violin, double bass and most of the other instruments.”

She also composed the school’s song.

In 1961, Lenore married Reverend Ethelbert Samaroo, now a retired principal. They have two adult daughters, Wendy a writer and Arlene an audiologist.

In 1984, just prior to her first retirement from SAGHS, Mahase-Samaroo formed the St Augustine Girls Alumnae Choir (now the Chorale) which in 2002 received the Humming Bird Medal Gold.

“After a very successful 1983 tour with the SAGHS Choir to Toronto, the girls were graduating and insisted that I form the Alumnae Choir, and it would have been a pity to see these voices leave,” says the Chorale’s musical director who in 1987 received the Medal of Merit, a national award for outstanding contributions to the country and internationally in the sphere of music.

In 1991, Mahase-Samaroo conducted and directed the chorale in “Festivals of a Rainbow Country T&T in Song/Dance and Voice” in Toronto accompanied by Jit Samaroo’s Steel Orchestra.

Mahase-Samaroo, the longest serving staff member of SAGHS, still teaches private pupils and meets weekly with the Chorale which continues to thrive. Well- known educator Anna Mahase, her sister and former principal of SAGHS, has generously given her home for rehearsals for the past 14 years.

One of Mahase-Samaroo’s proud moments in a very long list of achievements was as a member of the Committee appointed to select the National Anthem which was chaired by Helen Mae Johnstone, founder of the Biennial Music Festival and Queen’s Hall.

“There were a large number of entries and every member of the committee took a set from which to choose what they thought best” says Mahase-Samaroo.

“I went home to Guaico and among my pile was Pat Castagne’s entry which I played and called the entire household to come and listen to the National Anthem of Trinidad and Tobago and played it for them. At the meeting Mae Johnson asked me to play all those selected. I played mine and eventually it was chosen. It really was from the beginning the anthem, it was so majestic. I did not write it but I selected it and the others agreed it was the best.”