The St Mar­garet's Youth and St Mar­garet's Boys AC Pri­ma­ry School Steel Or­ches­tras emerged cham­pi­ons in their in­di­vid­ual cat­e­gories at the just-con­clud­ed Or­lan­do Spring Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, or­gan­ised by USA Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, and held at Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios, Flori­da, on April 9.The com­pet­i­tive as­pect of the fes­ti­val was di­vid­ed in­to two cat­e­gories: el­e­men­tary schools and open.

The St Mar­garet's Boys AC Pri­ma­ry School com­pet­ed in the el­e­men­tary schools cat­e­go­ry and won with its three se­lec­tions: My Favourite Things, One Mo­ment in Time, and Like A Boss. St Mar­garet's Youth won the Open cat­e­go­ry, play­ing five se­lec­tions: a rock med­ley, Hap­py, a Michael Jack­son med­ley, zouk and Ola.

At the end of the com­pe­ti­tion the St Mar­garet's con­tin­gent was de­clared the over­all cham­pi­on by tak­ing home five tro­phies: first place in the two cat­e­gories, Cham­pi­on in El­e­men­tary Schools, Cham­pi­on in the Open Cat­e­go­ry and The Most Sup­port­ive Group.The con­tin­gent–which left Trinidad on Mon­day, April 4–com­prised 59 in­di­vid­u­als, in­clu­sive of mu­si­cians and chap­er­ones.

Fif­teen were play­ers from St Mar­garet's Boys AC Pri­ma­ry School Steel Or­ches­tra and 19 from the St Mar­garet's Youth Steel Or­ches­tra.

They were the same young mu­si­cians who gave a stel­lar per­for­mance at the pres­ti­gious Carnegie Hall in Man­hat­tan in June 2015, and re­ceived a stand­ing ova­tion there, as well as at oth­er per­for­mances at the Lib­er­tyville Sci­ence Cen­tre and in Brook­lyn.

The ad­ju­di­ca­tor com­ment­ed on the ex­cel­lent mu­si­cian­ship of the play­ers and sin­gled out the mu­sic from the gui­tar sec­tions for spe­cial praise. He al­so com­pli­ment­ed the aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing vi­su­al per­for­mances by the mem­bers that were en­hanced with cre­ative chore­og­ra­phy.

Or­gan­is­ers said par­tic­i­pa­tion in the fes­ti­val was pos­si­ble be­cause of the com­mit­ment and hard work of the mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Shenelle Abra­ham, the fore­sight of the founder Rose­marie Abra­ham who in­tro­duced and keeps alive the Steel­pan Mu­sic Pro­gramme in St Mar­garet's Boys' AC Pri­ma­ry School, and the man­ag­er of the St Mar­garet's Steel Or­ches­tras, Kurt Abra­ham.

Chap­er­one Jem­ma Jor­dan of­fered thanks to Methanol Hold­ings T&T Ltd for its con­tin­ued fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance; the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and The Arts; and Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL).

Steel­band ho­n­ours Ron­nie McIn­tosh

Last Sat­ur­day's Di­a­ton­ic Steel in Mo­tion, held along High Street, Siparia, at­tract­ed such a mam­moth crowd that or­gan­is­ers Di­a­ton­ic Pan In­sti­tute and Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion may have to ex­pand the pa­rade route next year. Now in its sixth year, the event fea­tured a com­pe­ti­tion ex­clu­sive for Sin­gle Pan steel­bands, com­pet­ing in four cat­e­gories, name­ly Re­li­gious, Best Reper­toire on the Road, Best Flag­wa­ver and Best Ron­nie McIn­tosh Se­lec­tion.

This year, the com­pe­ti­tion was ex­tend­ed but the mam­moth crowd still spilled off the pave­ment along High Street. Sev­er­al pa­trons were over­heard pledg­ing to re­turn for next year's com­pe­ti­tion es­pe­cial­ly for the am­bi­ence, good pan mu­sic and sense of se­cu­ri­ty en­sured by the pro­tec­tive ser­vices on du­ty.

The route em­ployed this year re­quired bands to as­sem­ble at the Daisy Voi­son Hub on SS Erin Road and pro­ceed down High Street, dis­pers­ing at the cor­ner of High and La Pas­to­ra Street.

McIn­tosh is the sixth pop­u­lar ca­lyp­so fig­ure to whom trib­ute has been paid by the or­gan­is­ers by hav­ing a cat­e­go­ry named af­ter them. The for­mer In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch and cham­pi­on Car­ni­val 2016 band­leader at­tend­ed on Sat­ur­day and re­ceived a plaque from Di­a­ton­ic Pan In­sti­tute pres­i­dent Kei­th By­er. Pre­vi­ous artistes to be ho­n­oured have been Crazy, Baron, Nel­son, Ca­lyp­so Rose and Iw­er George.

In ad­di­tion to the dozen sin­gle pan steel­bands com­pet­ing, there were al­so guest ap­pear­ances by Petrotrin Del­tones, San City, South­ern Stars Phil­har­mon­ic and Siparia Rhythm Sec­tion.

Na­tion­al Panora­ma 2016 Sin­gle Pan run­ner-up Trinidad East Side copped Sat­ur­day's over­all ti­tle, ahead of Ari­ma All Stars, Pan Stere­onettes, San Juan All Stars and City Sun Val­ley. East Side won the two ma­jor cat­e­gories– Re­li­gious and Best Reper­toire on the road. At this year's Na­tion­al Panora­ma Sin­gle Pan fi­nal, East Side placed sec­ond to San Juan East Side Sym­pho­ny, play­ing Car­lon Hare­wood's arrange­ment of Duke's To­tal Dis­or­der.

On Sat­ur­day, T&T Fire Ser­vices took home the first prize for Best Ron­nie McIn­tosh Se­lec­tion play­ing Ah Come Back Home while San Juan All Stars' Make­da Bish­op won the Best Flag Wa­ver ti­tle. In the Re­li­gious cat­e­go­ry, East Side's se­lec­tion was No­body's Greater Than You.

In oth­er steel­band news, qual­i­fy­ing games in the 2016 Com­PAN­ions Fam­i­ly Day con­tin­ue this week­end at the pa­n­yards of bpTT Rene­gades and Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus with the ac­tu­al fi­nale planned for Sun­day, May 29. One of the day's high­lights is the fun pa­rade and this year's theme is Let's Go Up the Is­lands. Stee­bands have been giv­en a list of 32 Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can states to de­pict.

The Laven­tille Steel­band Foun­da­tion has can­celled this year's 8 of Hearts Con­cert which was orig­i­nal­ly ear­marked to show­case the steel­bands of Laven­tille. How­ev­er, Pan Trin­ba­go Inc will hold its next in­stall­ment of Pan in De Coun­try­side on May 25 (eve of Cor­pus Christi) in Las Cuevas. There will be shut­tle ser­vice to and from Pan Trin­ba­go's head­quar­ters at Vic­to­ria Square North, Park Street, Port-of-Spain.

Schools dance fes­ti­val fi­nale

The Sec­ondary Schools Dance Fes­ti­val is an an­nu­al fes­ti­val that is host­ed by the Na­tion­al Dance As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (NDA), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. The fes­ti­val is in its eighth year and has re­cent­ly con­clud­ed three days of pre­lim­i­nar­ies dur­ing the pe­ri­od of March 22-24. The fi­nal round of the com­pe­ti­tion is set to take place at 9 am on Fri­day, April 22 at the Rudranath Capildeo Learn­ing Re­source Cen­tre, Cou­va.

Every year, pre­sen­ta­tions be­come in­creas­ing­ly fas­ci­nat­ing and growth is seen in stu­dents who re­peat­ed­ly en­ter the fes­ti­val. While some of the fes­ti­val's reg­u­lar en­trants were not present this year, the pre­lim­i­nary round proved to be an ex­cit­ing foun­da­tion for what can be ex­pect­ed in the fi­nals. This year al­so saw new­com­ers, Ste Madeleine Sec­ondary, of­fer­ing six im­pres­sive sub­mis­sions for the judges' con­sid­er­a­tion.

"This fes­ti­val is es­sen­tial to the stu­dents be­cause it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to show­case their cre­ativ­i­ty and tal­ent," said NDA PRO Kamille-Ann Lynch-Grif­fith.

For the fi­nals, stu­dents will be judged in cat­e­gories such as: 11-15 (age group) and 16-19 So­lo Male and Fe­male, 11-15 and 16- 19 Duet, Group Dance, Cre­ative Freestyle and Com­pul­so­ry Folk. The fi­nal of the fes­ti­val al­so helps to cel­e­brate Na­tion­al Dance Month, an ini­tia­tive of the NDA to pro­mote and fos­ter dance aware­ness and dance de­vel­op­ment in T&T.

This year, the NDA will be host­ing a se­ries of dance work­shops as well as Con­ver­sa­tions with the El­ders. The con­ver­sa­tions are meant to fa­cil­i­tate dance pi­o­neers pass­ing on of their knowl­edge to the younger gen­er­a­tion of dancers. These con­ver­sa­tions will take place over the course of two Sat­ur­days in April.

Peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in up­dates or ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion on the hap­pen­ings in the dance com­mu­ni­ty, as well as the events of Na­tion­al Dance Month, which leads up to In­ter­na­tion­al Dance Day on April 29, can "like" the NDA on Face­book.com/NDA.TT.ORG, or call the pres­i­dent of the NDA at 663-6404 or 490-7776.