Pe­ter Ray Blood

Some of the most beau­ti­ful mu­sic I have ever heard was at steel­band mu­sic fes­ti­vals events I have at­tend­ed since child­hood, dat­ing back to the 50s.

Fast-for­ward to 1964 when the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Steel­bands­men (NATTS), fore­run­ner to Pan Trin­ba­go, held its first of­fi­cial fes­ti­val at Queen's Hall, St Ann's.

It was his­toric for many rea­sons, one be­ing that it was the first time a De­fence Force steel or­ches­tra had par­tic­i­pat­ed in a steel­band com­pe­ti­tion. That con­test al­so saw NATTS fin­ing reg­is­tered bands which did not par­tic­i­pate a penal­ty of the prince­ly sum of $20 each. The even­tu­al cham­pi­ons of the fes­ti­val were soloist Ray Hol­man, play­ing Min­uet in C, and West Side Sym­pho­ny, play­ing Ros­es from the South.

Through the years, this fes­ti­val has served and nur­tured the best pan mu­si­cians and steel­bands on Earth.

Com­ing eas­i­ly to mind al­so are con­duc­tors of the fes­ti­vals of the past 50 years, some of them ec­cen­tric per­form­ers, like Ben Jack­son.

Some of my favourite con­duc­tors have been the late Artie Cyril Shaw, An­tho­ny Prospect, Fitzger­ald "Un­cle Jem" Jem­mot, Pat Bish­op and Paul Camp­bell.

The com­bi­na­tion of Pat Bish­op and Wit­co Des­per­a­does can on­ly be de­fined as mag­i­cal in the an­nals of the steel­band mu­sic fes­ti­val.

Un­der her di­rec­tion, the Laven­tille Hill or­ches­tra scored a hat-trick of wins (1986, 1988, 1992). Any true-blood­ed steel­band fes­ti­val en­thu­si­ast must fond­ly re­call the in­ter­pre­ta­tions of Bo­radin's Polovet­sian Dancer; Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave and The Bartered Bride, each one bring­ing au­di­ences to their feet on fi­nal night.

My oth­er mem­o­rable vi­gnettes of the steel­band fes­ti­val have been Catel­li (now Neal & Massy) Trinidad All Stars win­ning the his­toric 1980 edi­tion, play­ing Von Suppe's Morn­ing Noon and Night in Vi­en­na, a feat re­peat­ed in 1984 when the band played Tchaikovsky's Sym­pho­ny No 4 in F Mi­nor Opus 36.

The 1980 fes­ti­val was spe­cial as it was the first one held since 1973, al­so won by Trinidad All Stars, per­form­ing Dvo­rak's Sym­pho­ny for New World Opus 9 and win­ning the Spree Si­mon Chal­lenge Tro­phy.

Fol­low­ing the in­au­gur­al 1964 fes­ti­val, up to 1973, cham­pi­ons have in­clud­ed Tripoli (1965); Des­per­a­does (1967); and Trinidad All Stars (1968).

But I con­tin­ue to cher­ish mem­o­ries of 1966, an epic and icon­ic fes­ti­val, when Pan Am Jet North Stars and City Syn­co­pa­tors both played Po­et and Peas­ant as their Tune of Choice and the Test Piece, An­tho­ny Prospect's In­ter­mez­zo in E.

This was al­so the first time the fes­ti­val was ad­ju­di­cat­ed by one judge, Prof John Rus­sell. It was one of the most fierce­ly con­test­ed fi­nals, won over­all by North Stars, but Syn­co­pa­tors win­ning the Mar­garet Rus­sell Tro­phy for the Best Per­for­mance of a clas­si­cal piece.

The fol­low­ing year, the fes­ti­val, ad­ju­di­cat­ed by Profs Rus­sel and Alan Tongue, was al­so a mem­o­rable mu­si­cal show­case.

Play­ing Mozart's Ex­cerpts from Twelve Dances, the ad­ju­di­ca­tors said Cordettes of San­gre Grande had the "sweet­est set of pans in the en­tire fes­ti­val" but the per­for­mance of Des­per­a­does, play­ing Palies­tra, was de­fined as "fan­tas­tic."

At the end of it, Des­per­a­does was ad­judged "grand cham­pi­onship win­ner" and got the Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al's Tro­phy.

For be­ing the top spon­sored band, Syn­co­pa­tors took home the Prime Min­is­ter's Tro­phy, while Cordettes re­ceived the Mar­garet Rus­sell Tro­phy for Best Test Piece. Katzen­jam­mers, the Best To­ba­go Band, al­so copped the Best Tune of Choice award, play­ing Fu­ni­culi Fu­nic­u­la.

Pan is Beau­ti­ful XII

De­spite Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az's claim­ing that the State and cor­po­rate world had not giv­en the steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tion funds to as­sist with the stag­ing of the fes­ti­val, lack of fund­ing wasn't ev­i­dent last week­end as Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and per­son­nel sport­ed new, beau­ti­ful­ly de­signed po­los and T-shirts, and tech­ni­cal in­fra­struc­ture for the pro­duc­tion, in­clud­ing stage and back­stage struc­ture, seemed to be well for­ti­fied, manned by Japan­ese tech­ni­cians; UTT stu­dents; sound en­gi­neer Frank Agar­rat; and DJ Joy Juice.

Hav­ing re­turned from Nige­ria two Sun­days ago and at­tend­ing Sat­ur­day's com­pe­ti­tions, Di­az said: "Pan Trin­ba­go has re­ceived no fund­ing from the State or the cor­po­rate world for this fes­ti­val. We wrote to at least 42 com­pa­nies and got no feed­back.

"This fes­ti­val has the largest num­ber of bands to reg­is­ter for a steel­band fes­ti­val since 1980 but in spite of fi­nan­cial con­cerns, we are go­ing ahead as planned. This thing is too big and im­por­tant to this na­tion to can­cel it again."

The week­end's ex­pe­ri­ence in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah had at least one un­re­al mo­ment for me. It hap­pened on Sun­day evening, dur­ing the per­for­mances by the soloists, be­fore the sun had set. As the mu­si­cians per­formed on stage, off stage, in the back­ground, one could see youths play­ing foot­ball–the Sa­van­nah prob­a­bly be­ing the on­ly venue in the world to fa­cil­i­tate a clas­si­cal mu­sic event and sport fix­ture at the same time.

Pan is Beau­ti­ful XII con­tin­ues on Oc­to­ber 19 and 20 at the Sa­van­nah with con­ven­tion­al or­ches­tras fac­ing the ad­ju­di­ca­tors. Com­pe­ti­tion reach­es boil­ing point on No­vem­ber 8, 10 and 16 when se­mi-fi­nals and the grand fi­nal will be staged at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa) and Jean Pierre Com­plex, Port-of-Spain.

As has been tra­di­tion­al, Pan is Beau­ti­ful XII is be­ing held un­der the pa­tron­age of the Pres­i­dent.

What they're play­ing

Com­peti­tors are per­form­ing test pieces com­posed by Dr Leroy Cal­liste (Black Stal­in):

�2 Re­spect the Steel­band (En­sem­ble)

�2 Black Man Feel­ing To Par­ty (Sin­gle Pan)

�2 Mr Pan Mak­er (Or­ches­tra)

�2 and a tune of choice.

Soloists are per­form­ing on any steel­pan in­stru­ment a mu­si­cal com­po­si­tion of their choice.

A Pan Trin­ba­go re­lease said par­tic­i­pants are com­pet­ing for a to­tal of $2.1 mil­lion in cash prizes.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, tro­phies are up for grabs for the best test piece, best tune of choice and cham­pi­on in each of the cat­e­gories.

De­fend­ing champs

While de­fend­ing so­lo cham­pi­on Mic­ahi Fe­li­cian, rep­re­sent­ing bpTT Rene­gades, didn't make it to the fi­nal, de­fend­ing en­sem­ble cham­pi­on Stryke Stars did.

Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus is ex­pect­ed to de­fend its ti­tle in the con­ven­tion­al or­ches­tra class.

De­fend­ing Sin­gle Pan cham­pi­on SWM­COL Co­dring­ton Pan Fam­i­ly will com­pete in the or­ches­tra cat­e­go­ry. Oth­er big names reg­is­tered in this cat­e­go­ry in­clude bpTT Rene­gades, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille and NGC Cou­va Joy­lan­ders.