Shel­don Os­borne

Star­lift Ju­nior Steel Or­ches­tra staged A Night of Cham­pi­ons last month at Star­lift's mod­ern new pa­n­yard on Christo­pher Samuel Dri­ve (for­mer­ly Mu­cu­rapo Road Ex­ten­sion) St James. Still rid­ing high on a wave of ex­cite­ment af­ter their suc­cess­ful tour of Cana­da last June, the pre-teen and teenage mem­bers of the decades-old Star­lift Steel Or­ches­tra, un­der the di­rec­tion of co­or­di­na­tor Bar­ry Man­nette, played as deft­ly as their adult coun­ter­parts.

The ju­nior Star­lift pan­nists, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of the band's se­niors, are be­com­ing known for their abil­i­ty to play a va­ri­ety of styles and demon­strate the ver­sa­til­i­ty of the pan. Pa­trons at the fund-rais­ing con­cert al­so en­joyed mu­si­cal of­fer­ings from the Mar­si­cans Steel Or­ches­tra, an Ari­ma-based steel­band that was orig­i­nal­ly a con­ven­tion­al band formed in 1968. In 1987, the band be­came a sin­gle-pan band and be­gan to shine, achiev­ing fi­nal­ist and semi­fi­nal­ist po­si­tions in dozens of pan events.

In the last decade, the Mar­si­cans achieved top ho­n­ours in more than 20 com­pet­i­tive pan events, in­clud­ing first place in the World Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val in 2002, sec­ond place in the Na­tion­al Panora­ma for 2008, and first place in TSTT's Pan Down Mem­o­ry Lane 2008. Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove closed the four-hour long pan con­cert with a med­ley of styles de­liv­ered smooth­ly by the band's skilled play­ers.

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the au­di­ence, along with play­ers from the oth­er bands, got up from their seats to dance, while oth­ers moved clos­er to the band to get a bet­ter look and the deft hand-move­ments of the Phase II play­ers. Those stand­ing clos­est to the band al­so got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to see Phase II arranger Len "Boogsie" Sharpe at work as he oc­cu­pied front and cen­tre, demon­strat­ing his own re­mark­able abil­i­ty to play the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.