Presenters named for Sparrow symposium

Four distinguished presenters will bring different perspectives on Mighty Sparrow’s phenomenal career at the symposium focused on the legendary artist, that will take place Friday evening, April 8 at Medgar Evers College, presented by the Trinidad & Tobago Folk Arts Institute, in collaboration with the Medgar Evers College School of Professional & Community Development.

Scheduled to make presentations are: Prof. Lawrence Waldron, who teaches art at City College of CUNY; Martin Felix, an educator who is also co-editor of the BigDrumNation.com website, a Caribbean arts and letters journal; poet Mervyn Taylor, whose poetry continuously engages the Caribbean culture spectrum; and attorney Khalick Hewitt, whose avid interest and research in calypso and steel band dates back to his youthful days in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Titled “Just Like That, Sparrow Turned 80,” the symposium will examine various aspects of Sparrow’s body of work since he captured the public’s imagination when he stormed onto the calypso scene as a 20-year-old and swiftly zoomed to the top, becoming the calypso world’s undisputed premier figure. His eight times winning Trinidad and Tobago’s Calypso Monarch and Carnival road march titles is a rare, unrivaled feat. And the towering mass of recorded material he has to his credit far surpasses anyone else in the field. Sparrow celebrated his 80th birthday last July.

The symposium, which runs from 7 pm to 10 pm will be held in Medgar Evers College’s Mary Pinkett Lecture Hall on the college campus, at 1637 Bedford Ave. (between Carroll & Crown streets) Brooklyn. Admission is free. For further information, call 718-252-6161 or 718-804-8815.