
St. George’s, October 27, 2011 (GIS) – Senator Arley Gill, who has been spearheading Grenada’s national cultural efforts in the past three years, has said he has lost a “cultural friend and partner’’ in Trinidadian Rolph Warner, who recently died of a massive heart attack.
“First of all, I would like to express condolences to the family of Rolph. His passing is a great lost to all who knew him. He was a friend of culture and the calypso artform,’’ said Sen. Gill, Minister of State in the Ministry of Tourism, Civil Aviation and Culture.
Warner, 57, collapsed while serving as goalkeeper during a football game in Port of Spain involving past students of six Trinidad secondary schools. It was a fundraiser for renal care patients.
Warner was a media consultant to Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Arts & Multiculturalism, Winston “Gypsy” Peters.
He also was a freelance photo-journalist with the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, which reported that “spectators were shocked when Warner, who was in high spirits earlier, grabbed his back and fell to the turf unconscious.’’
Brother Resistance, who performed in Grenada last Sunday at the close of the 2011 Spice Word Festival, attended Queen’s Royal College with Warner.
“Even as a second former, he was the most promising goalkeeper we ever had in college. But Rolph suffered with his back,’’ said Brother Resistance, who is president of the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation.
He described Warner as “an independent thinker’’ with a “passion for embracing the entertainment and cultural agenda; always working hard; making friends with everyone.’’
Warner was in the vanguard of a movement that resulted in designating last July 12 as “International Calypso and Soca Day.’’ It marked the start of a week of activities in celebration of calypso and soca.
Sen. Gill, who backed the initiative and called it “brilliant,’’ interacted with Warner during the organising of “International Calypso and Soca Day.’’ The Senator referred to him as “a very good and a very knowledgeable man.’’
The July 12 – 19 activities, Warner said at the time, were designed to bring “international attention to what is arguably the world’s happiest music and get the Caribbean Diaspora to all be on the same page.’’