Now facing her true baptism of fire with the organisation of the event-packed Gibraltar Spring Festival, Cynthia is proving herself a worthy scholar of a worthy master, coordinating a busy schedule of cultural events stretching from Easter to early June. The Festival opens with the National Choir performance of Ariel Ramirez’s Misa Criolla, and is a crescendo of entertainment towards the grand finale, the queen of shows — to elect the beauty queen who will be Gibraltar’s ambassador to Miss World in September.

   Cynthia is buzzing with enthusiasm for a job which has no downsides for her, but is mind-teasing and rewarding at the same time and allows her to get in close contact with all the people who are creating culture in Gibraltar, on so many different levels and in so many imaginative ways.

   “Culture can never be boring,” she says, observing there is always something new to learn in her daily routine and that the hard work of scheduling meetings, planning calendars and supervising the logistics has its own reward when the event comes to life successfully. Once over she starts looking forward to the next one.

   “The best part of my job is seeing it happen after a lot of time and effort. When I sit down and watch the show I think “Wow! It was all worth it!” It’s like seeing a dream come true with the satisfaction of having done something well and the anticipation of planning the next one to be even better,” she says, also acknowledging her staff for their zealous help in watching over the smooth running of all the practical bits.

   Working unsocial hours sometimes is pretty much part of the fun for Cynthia, because it means attending evening shows she has been involved in sorting out — and it is very often the perfect excuse to take her family with her, and introduce her children to the local cultural scene.

   Actually, as a mother more than as director of culture, she advises all parents to take their children to art or photographic exhibitions, drama productions, concerts and dance shows, instead of the usual slouch-on-the-couch evening routine in front of the telly or videogames: “Go out, watch something new and be amazed!”

   Amazed, that is, by the high standard amateur theatre in Gibraltar can attain; amazed by the freshest fine arts trends or exquisite musical performances or the expressiveness of dance.

   Cynthia doesn’t consider that being a woman is a particular advantage, or indeed disadvantage, in her profession, where rather than a definite female touch, it is ‘compulsory’ to possess good listening skills, be sensible and sensitive and always able to focus on the bigger picture — all qualities she learned from the master when she was ‘training’ with her predecessor and father of Gibraltar cultural life as we know it nowadays.

   She is always available to be stopped in the street, tight schedule permitting, to be issued feedback, compliments and criticisms about an event, and she is ready to take on board all useful suggestions to improve or innovate.

   As an individual, she would like to realise her vision of a large combination of events, like drama, dance and art, all unfolding on the same day at a big venue like the Alameda Gardens — a kind of culture fair that the whole family would attend and browse at leisure — although she admits it would be a logistics nightmare requiring very careful organisation and coordination!

   For this year Cynthia and her super-team are sticking to the more traditional format, with a broad calendar of events featuring the variety of cultural facets Gibraltar