When the 2006 Trinidad and Tobago Music Festival ends its month-long run at Queen's Hall on Saturday many lives would have been touched in significant ways—forever.

The Music Festival Association has reported that over 3700 entrants competed in the various classes, with more than 500 competing in Tobago . The number of actual participants is much higher since among these entrants are choirs, some with over 20 persons.

It is heartening, in particular, to note the number of young people who have taken part in the preliminaries. Their aim: to give of their best rather than to grind fellow-competitors into the dust.

The reach of the festival extends far beyond the month of onstage performances. For many months young people throughout Trinidad and Tobago have been brought to the feet of the great composers, to listen, to learn, to become more aware of the sheer beauty and power of music.

Very likely, as in the past, many of those who participate in the festival will go on to make a career of music. All this could only have been achieved through their great discipline and the dedication of teachers.

Adjudicator Professor Bruce Trinkley was not far wrong when he declared these teachers “heroes”. The traditional hero though is a product of time. We come to judge who our heroes are by looking in the rear-view mirror.

But the true hero is also a product of the means of communication. Some media theorists hold that today's fast-paced and overheated electronic media have all but spirited away the real hero; that what we have been left with are celebrities—“kings” and “queens” who are as quickly dethroned as they are enthroned.

Society, however, needs its heroes if the community itself is not to take on the evanescence of the celebrity. But it is the same media—perhaps led by the print medium, which in the past has sustained the traditional hero—who must work at preserving and sustaining our heroes.

Satisfying a holy longing

To record accurately and acknowledge the work of those teachers who have over the years worked at training our young people in the field of the arts, and in other areas as well, is an important part of this process. The coverage given to the festival by the dailies needs to be commended.

But the festival must also be a great teacher for the hundreds who have attended performances so far, and the many more who will make their way to Queen's Hall during this week of championships. By their comments, Professor Trinkley and Dr Olive Lewin have provided many lessons in musical appreciation. But, there is something more.

At one of the sessions earlier in the month, Professor Trinkley told students competing in the primary school category that singing was a complete human experience that involved breathing, the mind, heart and soul. St Augustine knew well this ability of music to touch the soul and to satisfy a holy longing. In the Confessions, he speaks to God saying:

I was not satisfied in those days with the wondrous sweetness of contemplating the depth of your counsels concerning the salvation of the human race. Your hymns and canticles made me weep, touched to the quick by the voices of your sweet-sounding Church!

The voices flowed into my ears and the truth distilled in my heart; from there the feelings of my devotion overflowed, tears ran down, and I was happy in them (Bk IX, 6).

No wonder after a mass choir of the 27 primary schools sang the test piece One Single Light many in the audience were wiping tears from their eyes.