Dominique Le Gendre’s ‘Portraits For Guitar’ Bridges Caribbean Roots And Classical Music

September 23, 2025
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News Americas, PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, Tues. Sept. 23, 2025: Some lives unfold like a quiet melody. Trinidad and Tobago-born, UK-based composer and guitarist Dominique Le Gendre’s life is an entire score – motifs layered and revisited, rhythms from Port of Spain to Paris to London, harmonies that refuse to resolve because the conversation is never over.

“Music has been mapping a very, very clear route through life and how to express being alive. The music is the heart, the blood, the oxygen.”

Dominique’s earliest classrooms were living rooms alive with music. Saturdays often meant sitting under Auntie Olive Walke’s piano as La Petite Musicale – the beloved choir Olive founded – rehearsed folk and sacred songs from across the Caribbean. Those rehearsals spilled beyond notes and lyrics; they taught children like Dominique that music could be worship and storytelling, culture and connective tissue. Olive even slipped Dominique and her sister into La Petite’s Christmas shows at Queen’s Hall, giving them an early taste of stagecraft and the quiet discipline behind beauty.

Family gatherings were their own concerts. Uncle John Henderson, armed with his beloved cuatro, filled the air with parang and old-time calypso. Her parents’ love of classical records added a European counterpoint, while two older brothers opened doors to the wider world—Jimi Hendrix, Mongo Santamaria, Miles Davis – stacked on the family turntable. Evenings in Port of Spain carried the soundscape further: distant drums and late-night steelpan rehearsals drifting through the neighborhood air, an atmosphere that seeped naturally into her musical imagination.

By nine, Dominique had a guitar in her hands. By ten she was the youngest member of the Assumption Church folk choir, stepping in with just three chords and a brave heart. Within weeks she was accompanying hymns with ease; before long, she and her sister were playing weddings, funerals and christenings all over the city.

“It was like living in a pan yard. Everyone belonged, everyone had something to contribute. That philosophy of the pan yard—collective creation, shared ownership – has never left me,” reminisces Dominique.

The pan yard – where music is learned by ear, where arrangements live in memory and every player can switch parts – became the blueprint for her life. It is still the metaphor she returns to: music as community, collaboration as artistry.

That Trinidadian foundation carried her outward. Dominique trained as a classical guitarist in Paris with Ramón de Herrera, studied harmony with Yvonne Desportes and music analysis with Christian Accaoui. In London she built a career composing for theatre, dance, film and radio drama; she wrote music for all thirty-eight of Shakespeare’s plays and became an Associate Artist of the Royal Opera House.

Yet, the heart of her practice never shifted. The work that nourished her most echoed the collaborative spirit of her Caribbean beginnings: theatre ensembles and radio studios where writers, actors and composers built something together in real time.

“When I’m fully invested in a project, that’s home. The place doesn’t matter as much as the work and the people,” she noted.

After decades of creating for others, Dominique has returned to the instrument that started it all. “In over fifty-six years of being with the guitar, this is the first time I’m sitting to write pieces just for the guitar,” she disclosed.

Her new album, Portraits for Guitar, is both statement and question. It asks, ‘What does Caribbean classical music sound like? Does this touch you? Is this part of you?’

The project gathers six original sketches for solo guitar and two suites of her own alongside music by Cuban composers Flores Chaviano and Walfrido Domínguez and British composer Stephen Goss. Performed with virtuoso Ahmed Dickinson, the works form what Dominique calls “a conversation of guitars”—Caribbean, Latin and European voices meeting on the same page.

Here her philosophy meets a wider conversation. In a recent essay for The Atlantic, composer Matthew Aucoin argued that classical music isn’t defined by a European sound or era at all but by writing – the act of putting music on paper so it can live again in each new performance. For Aucoin, notation is the connective tissue across centuries, the way ideas travel beyond the composer’s lifetime.

Dominique embodies that idea. For her, a score is another kind of pan yard: a living archive where knowledge is shared and reshaped. When she writes these guitar portraits, she isn’t just recording an album; she’s creating a written conversation that future guitarists can inhabit and transform.

“When I’m composing I can feel an urge to rush ahead—to reach the ending,” she says. “But with this music I have to let each section unfold in its own time. Getting to the end isn’t the goal; the discovery inside the process is.”

The process is as deliberate as the music. Recording will take place over four days in a resonant church outside London, followed by editing, mastering and the subtle sound-sculpting of a classical producer. The label will handle licensing, design, distribution, reviews and radio submissions. The release is planned for September 2026, allowing the music to breathe and find its listeners.

In this light, Portraits for Guitar becomes more than a beautiful album. It is Dominique’s way of expanding what classical music can mean – a Caribbean imagination inscribed in notation, ready for anyone, anywhere, to discover and play forward.

While the guitar draws Dominique inward, SongMaps Rye sends her outward. This multi-year project unfolds in a small English coastal town already on the front line of rising seas. Working with scientists, poets, circus artists and residents, she and her team use music, poetry and environmental science to help people see, feel and act.

“Councils have decided which towns will be sacrificed, but they haven’t told the people. We’re not making activists – we’re giving people the information, tools and creativity to ask the questions that need to be asked and to make demands,” she said.

Workshops are free by design. Young people write and podcast about their world. Families learn gardening and stilt-walking. Local experts lead river walks and bird-identification sessions. The goal is empowerment and resilience.

“Otherwise, it remains an elite activity. These activities are too important. It’s about making the future possible for people for whom hope is disappearing,” Dominique noted.

Here the pan yard philosophy finds new life: collective creativity as resilience, a community orchestra of scientists, elders and children writing their own survival score.

When I ask what hope sounds like, Dominique pauses, then smiles. “My compositions sound as if they’re never finished. The end is always hanging in the air. That is what hope is – his conversation isn’t over.” For her, openness is legacy: creating opportunities for others, fostering a spirit of collaboration and listening that outlives any single piece of music.

Dominique’s Portraits for Guitar campaign is live now. Your contribution directly supports the recording – studio time, mastering, producer, guest artists, and the quiet, painstaking work that turns new music into a lasting document.

Supporters can choose from beautifully crafted perks: early digital access, signed CDs and scores, private lessons, even Executive Producer credits and intimate house concerts. More than a CD, your gift helps safeguard a living Caribbean classical tradition and ensures that Dominique’s lifelong map of music continues to chart new territory.

Click HERE to join the journey and make a gift today

Dominique Le Gendre: child of La Petite Musicale and Auntie Olive’s living-room rehearsals, niece of Uncle John and his parang cuatro, composer of unfinished endings, keeper of memory, builder of resilience. Her music reminds us that hope is a melody still unfolding – one we can all help play.

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Photo Focus: Healthy Living Fair Sets a Festive Scene

Crowds of St. Thomas-St. John residents and visitors mingled in Emancipation Garden Tuesday as health providers and service groups offered free screenings and advice promoting healthy living.

It was the second annual health fair sponsored by Sen. Ray Fonseca, chair of the 36th Legislature’s Health, Hospitals and Human Services Committee. Organizers said they hoped to glean insights from the numerous health screenings and referrals to inform talks among lawmakers and help them set spending priorities. “This initiative seeks to address critical public health challenges and improve the living conditions for numerous individuals,“ said a statement issued before Tuesday’s event.

Representatives from Health, Agriculture, East End Medical Center, the V.I. Center for Diabetes Excellence, and SkyMed air ambulance service were on hand to answer questions.
Many of those spending Tuesday morning in the park were seniors from St. Thomas and St. John. Musical performances by local students and an invited musician caused passersby to pause and linger nearby.

Over by the Health Department display, Kisha Williams showed Country Hamilton how to perform a water quality test using a prepackaged kit. Williams explained that the kit allows users to check for contaminants in their home supply.

Lakiah Meade, director of Maternal and Child Health, was among those on hand to greet the public. Although the services she offered seemed like a mismatch with elderly participants, she said the interactions were largely positive.
“We were able to provide grandmothers, grandparents with information for their grandchildren, especially for the WIC Program,” Meade said.
At the East End Medical Center exhibit, Dianne Morales offered blood pressure and other tests. “We’re also here if anyone wants an appointment; we can get them enrolled to see a provider,” Morales said.
Morales serves as the assistant to Medical Director Trisha Harris. Beside her was a table filled with brochures describing a slew of health conditions. “We also have information for every walk of life from 0 to 99 … We’re giving education on diabetes and … how to take your medications, how to see a physician on a regular basis; what your numbers should look like,” she said.
Early visitors to the health fair were treated to lunch before boarding vehicles for the trip back to their respective homes. Volunteer Sandra Colburne from the Institute for Social Change said her group arranged transport for seniors living in Pilgrim Terrace.
Part of the group’s mission is to engage older adults in community-based activities. “We focus on the elderly in the community; today we had the health fair that was held by Senator Fonseca,” she said.
Fonseca, host of Tuesday’s fair, relaxed in a chair in the David Monsanto Bandstand, stepping to the announcer’s mic to draw tickets for a raffle prize. “The turnout was awesome — very hot and humid but it was an excellent turnout,” he said.
Since these fairs began, he said, they have welcomed residents from St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John with the goal of keeping the community healthy and aware of the services available to them.

New Diver Training Aims to Build ‘First Responders’ for Coral Reefs

As heavy rains and hurricane forecasts remind the Virgin Islands of the season’s uncertainty, a different kind of emergency training just wrapped up underwater. Local coral disturbance Strike Teams — volunteer divers already known for their fight against coral disease — completed a pilot program designed to turn them into “reef first responders,” ready to stabilize reefs after storms, vessel groundings, or other sudden damage.
“This is like building a firefighter squad for our coral reefs,” said Jordan Schneider, president of Ceiba Strategies, which manages the Strike Team program for the Department of Planning and Natural Resources. “We’re preparing divers to jump into action when reefs need help most.”
Strike Teams have been on the frontlines since 2019, hand-treating corals sickened by Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease with underwater doses of amoxicillin. Their work has preserved countless colonies, even as SCTLD wiped out much of the Caribbean’s reef-building corals. With fewer susceptible corals left and new threats looming — bleaching, invasive species, and debris from storms — DPNR has broadened the teams’ mission.

The two-day pilot training recently held at Butler Bay on St. Croix and Coki Bay on St. Thomas brought together 21 divers, some with professional coral restoration backgrounds and others trained through the Strike Team program. On land, they practiced belt transects, simulating reef surveys with markers. In the water, they carried out full damage assessments, geotagged coral fragments, and learned to stabilize broken colonies using lift bags and marine epoxy. “The corals we re-secure are often the survivors — the ones that have made it through years of bleaching and disease,” explained diver Logan Williams. “Saving them strengthens the whole reef.”
Training also included safe transport techniques for rare or ESA-listed species, which may need to be moved to nurseries to preserve genetic diversity. That skill was quickly put to use. Just days after the session, Strike Team divers were called to St. Croix, where a vessel set adrift during Hurricane Erin had smashed into an endangered elkhorn coral colony before washing ashore. The incident left behind debris now under DPNR investigation, but also offered an early, real-world test of the team’s new skills.
Local partners, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Coral Restoration Foundation, CORE Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, Thriving Islands, East End Marine Park, Sea Grant, and the University of the Virgin Islands, all helped shape the curriculum. Their goal is to create a territory-wide coral emergency response network — a collaborative effort that will allow reefs and the communities that rely on them to recover more quickly after damage.

Schneider said the training is only a beginning. “We’ll keep refining the program as we respond to more incidents, and my hope is to expand it to include more local divers,” he said. “The stronger our network, the faster our reefs — and the communities that depend on them — can recover.”
Community members who see a grounded vessel or reef damage are urged to contact DPNR’s Coral Disturbance Response Coordinator, Courtney Tierney, at courtney.tierney@dpnr.vi.gov.

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