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Bertie, our hero

Bertie Marshall is remembered as a musical colossus, an inventor in an unreachable stratosphere, who broke through electronic heights with breathtaking brilliance and distinction.

I heard less of him than his stature demanded; and his recognition as an icon of the pan art seems to have been understated, even after his national acclaim (Order of Trinidad and Tobago) and his academic recognition at UWI.

I am fortunate to have met him at his upstairs home in La Cour Harpe—and to own a pan that he himself tuned!

From my years as a T&T resident, I remember him as a low-keyed, modest person, who may have felt that his own achievements were so commanding in their own right that they needed no amplification—even as he experimented with amplifying the pan, innovating the bertphone.

Our task is to brand our heroes such as Bertie Marshall as live examples of our achievements in the Caribbean, and to tell the stories to our youth, maybe by way of a Bertie Marshall interactive medium, where youth can recreate and participate in the glory of invention.

May he rest in the embrace of the musical harmony that he created, and with the assurance God's abundant blessings.

Alicia Mondesire

via e-mail

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