DAVID CUFFY

Out­stand­ing per­for­mances by fe­male mem­bers on the cast con­tributed, in large mea­sure, to the mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence de­liv­ered at Clas­si­cal Jew­els X-The Lega­cy, staged by the Neal and Massy Trinidad All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day night.

Ded­i­cat­ed to the lega­cy of the 77-year-old or­ches­tra's watch­words-dis­ci­pline, ded­i­ca­tion and mag­nif­i­cence-the tenth edi­tion pro­gramme's pieces were se­lect­ed to pay trib­ute to its for­mer mu­si­cal di­rec­tors. In ad­di­tion, the oc­ca­sion was used to recog­nise the rise of one of its mu­si­cians, Deryck Nurse, from pan­nist to or­ches­tra con­duc­tor.

It was mid­way on the play­bill's first half when ado­ra­tion and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the cast's fair­er sex was gen­er­at­ed.

Tenor pan­nist Mia Gor­mandy, now in­to her sec­ond year at Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty in Tal­la­has­see where she is pur­su­ing a mas­ter's de­gree in eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy, teamed up with ac­claimed vo­cal­ist, pi­anist, pan­nist and per­cus­sion­ist Michaela Tami­ka Ward-Lewis on the marim­ba (a type of xy­lo­phone, but with a broad­er and low­er tonal range) to per­form As­tor Pi­az­zol­la's His­to­ry of the Tan­go.

The re­sult was a heady mu­si­cal con­ver­sa­tion be­tween pan and per­cus­sion that left the au­di­ence stunned. Be­fore there was time to re­cov­er, how­ev­er, guest con­duc­tor June Nathaniel was tak­ing the or­ches­tra's all-fe­male en­sem­ble, fea­tur­ing Keisha Bais­den on vi­o­lin, through the in­tri­cate pas­sages of Con­cer­to No 1 in E ma­jor, Op 8, La Pri­mav­era by An­to­nio Vi­val­di. Bais­den is a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mi­a­mi where she com­plet­ed her BSc in mu­sic ther­a­py and psy­chol­o­gy.

The sheer ex­u­ber­ance and dra­mat­ic en­er­gy the com­bi­na­tion demon­strat­ed in de­liv­er­ing the work was wide­ly ap­plaud­ed. Nathaniel, who has en­joyed a long re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad All Stars, used her vast ex­per­tise as a mu­sic con­duc­tor to guide the full or­ches­tra through a ro­bust, swag­ger­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Franz Von Suppe's Morn­ing, Noon and Night in Vi­en­na to bring the cur­tain down on a first seg­ment of awe­some mu­si­cal pro­por­tions.

Af­ter the in­ter­val, the string en­sem­ble joined the or­ches­tra.

Made up of nine mem­bers, of which eight were fe­male, the en­sem­ble, de­spite the dom­i­nance of the tenors, still man­aged to elic­it a clar­i­ty of har­mon­ic ex­pres­sion in the group­ing's pre­sen­ta­tion of the Bal­let Switch in which the mu­sic of Tchaikovsky, Ver­di, Leo De­libes and Khacha­turi­an fea­tured in se­lec­tions which in­clud­ed Swan Lake, Waltz of the Flow­ers, Chil­dren's March, Czardas, Dance of the Moor­ish Slave Boys and Sabre Dance.

The en­sem­ble's ap­pear­ance with the band was fa­cil­i­tat­ed through dis­cus­sion with the man­age­ment of the Na­tion­al Sin­fo­nia Or­ches­tra.

The seg­ment in­clud­ed, as well, pre­sen­ta­tions by the Trinidad All Stars Septet (a sev­en-mem­ber con­fig­u­ra­tion) do­ing Wa­ter Mu­sic Suite in D Ma­jor; vo­cal­ist J Er­rol Lewis, who suf­fered from the au­di­to­ri­um's less-than-per­fect sound sys­tem for vo­cal mi­cro­phones in his show­case of I Shall Not Want, as did Jacque­line Smith in her ap­pear­ance; and Dane Gul­ston on tenor pan and Sat­nar­ine Ba­boolar on sitar per­form­ing Gul­ston's com­po­si­tion ti­tled A Dif­fer­ent Shade of Sil­ver.

Fol­low­ing a med­ley of Christ­mas mu­sic, the pro­gramme end­ed with a tri­umphant ren­der­ing of Panora­ma Clas­sics, in which the Stars flaw­less­ly recre­at­ed two of its fin­er mo­ments in that com­pe­ti­tion-Cur­ry Ta­ban­ca that man­aged to earn it a dis­ap­point­ing fourth place in 1987, and Woman on the Bass that won the cham­pi­onship ti­tle in 1980.