A new gen­er­a­tion of lo­cal mu­sic com­posers is be­ing groomed to show­case their nat­ur­al tal­ents to na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences in the fu­ture. At least, that is the fer­vent hope of the Pan in Schools Co-or­di­nat­ing Coun­cil (PSCC), which held its an­nu­al va­ca­tion work­shop for as­pir­ing mu­si­cians dur­ing the first two weeks of Ju­ly. With cor­po­rate spon­sor bpTT on board for yet an­oth­er year, the PSCC work­shops were aimed pri­mar­i­ly at pro­vid­ing hands-on train­ing and mo­ti­va­tion by pro­fes­sion­al mu­si­cians to as­sist CXC stu­dents in the art of com­pos­ing mu­sic. Vis­its to the two venues in North and South Trinidad–St Bene­dict's Col­lege, La Ro­maine, and Bish­op Anstey High School/Trin­i­ty East Col­lege, Trinci­ty–re­vealed a wealth of tal­ent by the young­sters as they com­posed their own orig­i­nal mu­sic and per­formed it on the steel­pan and oth­er in­stru­ments.

Ayan­na Roberts, a Form Three stu­dent of Holy Name Con­vent, Point Fortin, was one of sev­er­al par­tic­i­pants who thrilled her tu­tors with her com­pos­ing abil­i­ty and dex­ter­i­ty on the steel­pan as she per­formed her orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion, en­ti­tled Wood­peck­er, at St Bene­dict's Col­lege on the Sat­ur­day. "This work­shop is a won­der­ful ex­pe­ri­ence for us. Our tu­tors are ex­cel­lent. They are teach­ing us the dif­fer­ent el­e­ments that go in­to a com­po­si­tion. They are show­ing us how we can be mu­si­cal­ly cre­ative and how we can com­pose our own mu­sic," said an en­thu­si­as­tic Roberts, whose pre­ferred in­stru­ment is the steel­pan. It is the sixth year that en­er­gy com­pa­ny bpTT has col­lab­o­rat­ed with the PSCC in nur­tur­ing the tal­ents of the young peo­ple of T&T. The com­pa­ny has es­tab­lished a rich tra­di­tion of in­volve­ment in the steel­band move­ment, dat­ing back to the 1970s, with mul­ti­ple Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­ons bpTT Rene­gades, its as­so­ci­a­tion with the Ju­nior Panora­ma Cham­pi­onships, and on­go­ing spon­sor­ship of cours­es in steel­pan con­struc­tion.

Ron­da Fran­cis, bpTT's cor­po­rate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty Man­ag­er, said the com­pa­ny has in­vest­ed heav­i­ly in de­vel­op­ing the po­ten­tial of the young peo­ple of T&T, not­ing that the con­tin­u­ing part­ner­ship with the PSCC rep­re­sents a valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the mu­si­cal de­vel­op­ment of the stu­dents. "These work­shops should pro­vide a firm foun­da­tion for many of the par­tic­i­pants to em­bark on a pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer in mu­sic. BPTT is proud to be part of this ex­cit­ing un­der­tak­ing," Fran­cis added. Pa­tri­cia Adams, PSCC vice pres­i­dent and na­tion­al co­or­di­na­tor for the work­shops, ex­plained that the part­ner­ship with bpTT has en­abled the or­gan­i­sa­tion to de­vel­op a range of ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar pro­grammes to ad­vance the de­vel­op­ment of mu­sic among the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion. The pro­grammes in­clude tun­ing, per­cus­sion and ar­rang­ing for the steel­pan, in ad­di­tion to com­pos­ing for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, as well as oth­er in­stru­ments. "Pref­er­ence, of course, is giv­en to the steel­pan. It is our na­tion­al in­stru­ment and one of our main ob­jec­tives is to pro­mote it in every pos­si­ble way," Adams em­pha­sised.

The two-week mu­sic com­po­si­tion work­shops were de­liv­ered in three-hour ses­sions from Mon­day to Sat­ur­day and were spe­cial­ly tar­get­ed to stu­dents who are prepar­ing for the CXC Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) mu­sic ex­am­i­na­tions.

Mu­sic stu­dents in To­ba­go par­tic­i­pat­ed in a week-long work­shop for mi­nor per­cus­sion in­stru­ments. Tu­tors for the north work­shop were Ka­reem Brown, cap­tain of the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, and Nigel Di­az, a mem­ber of the band. Work­shop co­or­di­na­tor was Sta­cy Al­can­tara. Paul Massy, re­gion­al co-or­di­na­tor of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion's Pan in the Class­room Unit, and Vanes­sa Headley, mu­sic arranger for San Fer­nan­do-based Gold­en Hands Steel Or­ches­tra, who is in her fi­nal year BA Mu­sic de­gree stud­ies at UWI, St Au­gus­tine, per­formed tu­to­r­i­al du­ties for the south work­shop. Co-or­di­na­tor was PSCC as­sis­tant sec­re­tary, Mar­celline Pe­ters.

As tu­tor Ka­reem Brown ex­plained: "This pro­gramme is in­tend­ed to de­liv­er the ba­sics in cre­at­ing a mu­si­cal com­po­si­tion. We as­sist the stu­dents in trans­form­ing their ideas in­to an orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion, us­ing such tools as mo­tif, rhythm, ex­pres­sion, ar­tic­u­la­tion and har­mon­ic pro­gres­sion. At the end of this work­shop, the goal is for each stu­dent to have three com­plete com­po­si­tions to in­clude in their CSEC mu­sic port­fo­lios." Massy point­ed out that an­oth­er im­por­tant as­pect of the work­shops is that, "these stu­dents are be­ing in­tro­duced to the use of Sibelius, which is a mu­sic no­ta­tion com­put­er pro­gramme. Be­cause of the cost, many stu­dents nev­er get the priv­i­lege of us­ing this soft­ware, which re­al­ly helps them to fo­cus and ful­ly de­vel­op their ideas in a re­al-time en­vi­ron­ment." Kendell Caton, of Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, said mu­sic com­po­si­tion was a core part of the CXC mu­sic syl­labus and these work­shops were giv­ing stu­dents a re­al ad­van­tage to per­form well at the ex­ams, and gen­er­al­ly de­vel­op their mu­si­cal abil­i­ty.

"I have al­ways want­ed a ca­reer in mu­sic and this work­shop has in­spired me to work hard to achieve my dreams," said an ea­ger Caton.

Sis­ters Al­lana and Emi­ly Poy­ah, stu­dents of SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege, San­gre Grande, were busy com­pos­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween tas­sa and steel­pan. "Our tu­tors are very knowl­edge­able and ap­proach­able. They cre­ate an in­ter­ac­tive en­vi­ron­ment where we get in­di­vid­ual at­ten­tion. We al­so get to use the Sibelius mu­sic soft­ware, which is very ex­cit­ing for us as mu­sic stu­dents." Krista Phillip, of South East Port-of-Spain, put the work­shops in­to con­text, "this work­shop has en­hanced my un­der­stand­ing of mu­sic and has helped me to de­vel­op the abil­i­ty to com­pose my very own mu­si­cal pieces.

"I hope that the Pan in Schools Co­or­di­nat­ing Coun­cil and bpTT keep help­ing stu­dents like my­self en­hance our mu­si­cal abil­i­ty and make a re­al con­tri­bu­tion to the over­all de­vel­op­ment of mu­sic in T&T."

Look­ing in­to the fu­ture, tu­tor Paul Massy had the fi­nal word on the po­ten­tial of the work­shops. "For us, the crown­ing glo­ry and achieve­ment would be for one of these stu­dents to vis­it some coun­try in years to come and hear his or her orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion per­formed in a con­cert or mu­sic fes­ti­val," he de­clared. Who knows? Judg­ing by the tal­ent on show from these as­pir­ing mu­si­cians, it may well come to pass.

CXC mu­sic stu­dents get in­di­vid­ual at­ten­tion at the bpTT-spon­sored Pan in Schools Co­or­di­nat­ing Coun­cil's va­ca­tion mu­sic work­shop at Bish­op Anstey High School/Trin­i­ty East Col­lege. Of­fer­ing guid­ance are tu­tors Nigel Di­az, left, and Ka­reem Brown, mid­dle, stand­ing, and co-or­di­na­tor Sta­cy Al­can­tara, right, fore­ground.