Sean Nero

Amer­i­can mu­sic ad­ju­di­ca­tors pre­sid­ing over the 29th Bi­en­ni­al T&T Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, tak­ing place at venues across the coun­try, have put in a re­quest with event co-or­di­na­tor Marie-Di­ane Dupres to vis­it the pa­n­yard of BP Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra. It seems they still can't get over the im­pres­sive pan­man­ship they heard from the nine-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on at Sun­day's gala open­ing, held at Queen's Hall in St Ann's, Port-of-Spain. They want to know how Rene­gades, led by Ever­ald "Red­man" Wat­son, achieved such silky pre­sen­ta­tions of Fred­er­ic Chopin's works when some of the world's lead­ing mu­si­cians aren't able to cap­ture the in­tent of the com­pos­er. Desmond Wait­he is Rene­gades' clas­si­cal di­rec­tor. Dr John Paul John­son, from Wi­chi­ta State Uni­ver­si­ty, Dr Jan Har­ring­ton and Dr Car­men He­le­na Pellez, both of In­di­ana Uni­ver­si­ty, ex­pressed de­light over the band's de­liv­er­ies at the gala.

Grande Valse Bril­lante, Op 18, Etude in E Ma­jor, Op 10 No 3 and Polon­aise In A Flat Ma­jor, Op 53 were the Chopin items per­formed on pan.

The for­eign ad­ju­di­ca­tors be­lieve that ex­pe­ri­enc­ing Rene­gades' mu­sic-mak­ing process first hand will help them un­der­stand the steel­pan–the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment of T&T. Dupres promised to work on fa­cil­i­tat­ing the re­quest, de­spite the ad­ju­di­ca­tors' tight sched­ule.

On open­ing night, Rene­gades al­so pro­vid­ed mu­sic ac­com­pa­ni­ment for lyric bari­tone Mar­vin Smith, with his scin­til­lat­ing de­liv­ery of the African Amer­i­can spir­i­tu­al O! What A Beau­ti­ful City, as well as dra­mat­ic so­pra­no Anne Fridal, who re­de­fined mu­si­cal sus­pense with her treat­ment of Ha­banera, from the opera Car­men from Georges Bizet. Dr John­son said: "The three of us talked about how we wished pi­anists would hear this group (Rene­gades) play the Chopin (mu­sic) that they play and how they ac­com­pa­nied so well too. It's a beau­ti­ful per­for­mance."

Mu­sic ed­u­ca­tor and fes­ti­val hon­oree Joslynne Sealey, right, has the at­ten­tion of for­eign ad­ju­di­ca­tors Dr John Paul John­son, of Wi­chi­ta State Uni­ver­si­ty and Dr Car­men He­le­na Pellez and Dr Jan Har­ring­ton, of In­di­ana State Uni­ver­si­ty.

Dr Pellez point­ed to the vari­a­tion in colour and sub­tle­ty of ar­tic­u­la­tion and phras­ing that was pos­si­ble with Rene­gades mu­si­cian­ship on the night. "I was ex­treme­ly im­pressed. We have just start­ed a pro­gramme in steel­pan at In­di­ana Uni­ver­si­ty and I will men­tion this pre­sen­ta­tion to the chair of the per­cus­sion de­part­ment so he gets more in­formed about the par­tic­u­lar work here. He al­ready knows, but it would be fan­tas­tic to have the di­rec­tor (of Rene­gades) come vis­it us and teach a work­shop." Her col­league Dr Har­ring­ton, al­so from In­di­ana Uni­ver­si­ty, ex­pressed ex­cite­ment go­ing in­to the Fes­ti­val fol­low­ing his Rene­gades ex­pe­ri­ence and said: "I will be very in­ter­est­ed to see how the younger play­ers de­vel­op, what is the process of them com­ing to the lev­el of ex­per­tise and mu­si­cian­ship that we heard." Mun­gal Patasar and Pan­tar; Robert Munro and Friends; and, mez­zo so­pra­no Michelle Dowrich com­plet­ed the cast which en­ter­tained Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards and Dr Jean Ramjohn Richards, fes­ti­val chair­man Dr Dor­rell Phillip; hon­oree Joslynne Sealey; Her Ex­cel­len­cy Am­bas­sador Joan Yuille-Williams; spon­sor rep­re­sen­ta­tives and scores of mu­sic afi­ciona­dos.

In de­clar­ing the fes­ti­val open, Pres­i­dent Richards said: "The fes­ti­val com­mit­tee has en­sured that dis­ci­pline must not on­ly be ev­i­dent in the use of voice or in­stru­ment. No mat­ter how su­perb the ren­di­tion, half a minute be­yond the time al­lot­ted will cost the care­less con­tes­tant.

"This is noth­ing new, but it serves as a re­minder to all of us that dis­ci­pline is nec­es­sary for suc­cess. Yes, we may have great tal­ent, be it in voice or the play­ing of in­stru­ments, but this at­ten­tion to de­tail is great­ly to be ap­plaud­ed as, very of­ten, in the is­sues of life, it is in the de­tail that we can win or lose." Gaug­ing the fes­ti­val's pos­i­tive im­pact on T&T, at a time when the coun­try need­ed respite from all that as­sails us "from many dif­fer­ent an­gles," he be­lieved that those com­mit­ting them­selves to make mu­sic will not do so light­ly. "We can­not risk medi­oc­rity if we are to es­tab­lish our­selves as peo­ple who tru­ly un­der­stand the pow­er of the mu­sic. And let us have no doubt in our minds about the place of mu­sic in our so­ci­eties. Mu­sic cer­tain­ly has the pow­er to trans­form, if we get it right."

BP Rene­gades pan­nist Aaron "Tin Pin" Franklin, left, Levi Jones and reign­ing Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val soloist Michia Fe­li­cian are fo­cused on the band's clas­si­cal di­rec­tor Desmond Wait­he.