GOODBYE, MAESTRO TORO COLINA

† It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to the Dutch Caribbean's biggest composer; Maestro Errol "El Toro" Colina. R.I.P. He wrote my winning song for the National Songfestival and together we competed at the finals of the Caribbean Song Festival, representing Curacao in Barbados in 1996, placing second runner-up. This helped lounge my TV en music career.

He also helped me get into Berklee College of Music in Boston after that. I'm so lucky that he agreed to be my guest piano player when we performed at the Curacao North Sea Jazz Festival in 2013 even though he was already very ill.

In this video we are rehearsing Dushi Korsou ('Nos Isla' by Rudy Plaate) for that festival, right after he had his dialysis.

Toro, masha danki for everything you did for me and for the Curacao community.

I am forever grateful.