Shel­don Os­borne

Pan, Rap­so, So­ca, Vin­tage Kaiso, folk songs, and bal­lads were all on the mu­si­cal menu in Mu­si­cal Ex­pres­sions, a con­cert host­ed by the Star­lift Ju­nior Steel Or­ches­tra last Sat­ur­day. The con­cert was held to as­sist the band in rais­ing much need­ed funds for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Mon­tre­al In­ter­na­tion­al Steel­pan Fes­ti­val in Cana­da which takes place lat­er this month. The band, con­sist­ing of chil­dren and teenagers, will al­so be per­form­ing for the Trinidad and To­ba­go High Com­mis­sion in Cana­da's cap­i­tal city Ot­tawa, lo­cat­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 kilo­me­tres from Mon­tre­al.

This Cana­di­an Tour is ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate con­sid­er­able ex­pense for the young band, and the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs was ap­proached be­fore last month's gen­er­al elec­tion seek­ing state as­sis­tance in meet­ing some of the costs of the tour. Band co­or­di­na­tor Bar­ry Man­nette told T&T Guardian that the band was ad­vised to write the Min­istry out­lin­ing its ex­pens­es and de­tails of the tour. But, al­though this was done, the band is yet to re­ceive a re­sponse from the Min­istry. Man­nette al­so said that with the change in Gov­ern­ment, the band wrote again to the Cul­ture Min­istry, now head­ed by new Arts & Mul­ti­cul­tur­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters.

"We are now hop­ing for a pos­i­tive re­sponse in time for the tour, which takes place on the 25th, 26th, and 27th of this month," Man­nette said. The fund-rais­ing show of­fered a taste of what the band would of­fer on the Cana­di­an Tour, with Star­lift's ju­nior pan­nists show­ing off the ver­sa­til­i­ty of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment by play­ing a va­ri­ety of styles. The au­di­ence cheered loud­ly when the ju­nior steel­band de­liv­ered their ren­di­tion of the late Michael Jack­son's Thriller. The Ly­di­an Singers, in their char­ac­ter­is­tic style, de­liv­ered sev­er­al time­less ca­lyp­sos and folk songs. Some of the singers added dra­ma to the pre­sen­ta­tion as they danced to the drum and pi­ano mu­sic that ac­com­pa­nied their catchy lyrics.

Rap­so group 3Canal whipped pa­trons in­to a fren­zy as they sang and chant­ed along to the trio's wit­ty but bit­ing so­cial com­men­tary. Singer Mar­i­lyn Williams opt­ed for a more in­ter­na­tion­al flavour, adding even more va­ri­ety to the pro­gramme, with the au­di­ence singing along as she de­liv­ered her smooth, love-themed bal­lads. Prov­ing that the steel­band move­ment has come a long way since the days of vi­o­lent steel­band clash­es, Rene­gades Youth Steel Or­ches­tra, from East Dry Riv­er, closed the show, sup­port­ing and as­sist­ing their young coun­ter­parts in what used to be a ri­val band from an­oth­er part of town.