(1911-1969) – musicologist, choir conductor
Olive Walke was a Trinidadian musician and ethno-musicologist who was one of the first to collect regional Caribbean folk songs. Between 1961 and 1966, she served as a Senator in the first Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago established after its independence. Founder of Trinidad and Tobago’s leading folk chorale, La Petite Musicale, Olive Walke valued the wealth of folklore and folk traditions in Trinidad, the variety and complexity of these traditions and the multiplicity of languages and influences: Spanish, French, English, African dialects, Portuguese and Indian. Her song collection Folk Songs of Trinidad and Tobago was published a few months after she succumbed to a lengthy illness and is still widely used in the island.
Olive Walke was our next-door neighbour and landlady and my first piano teacher. As a child I had the privilege of sitting in on the weekly choir rehearsals that were usually held in either her living room or on her porch.
Dominique Le Gendre
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Walke
