Sean Nero

Dance mu­sic filled the Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, pa­n­yard of bpTT Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra last Fri­day when Pan Trin­ba­go held the first in a three-part se­ries of con­certs to raise funds for its Chil­dren's Christ­mas Par­ty.Dubbed Pan For the Peo­ple, the event fea­tured per­for­mances from Wit­co Des­per­a­does, Co­dring­ton Pan Fam­i­ly, Uni Stars, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille and bpTT Rene­gades.

There were spe­cial ap­pear­ances from ca­lyp­son­ian De Fos­to (Win­ston Scar­bor­ough) and Chucky (Rod­er­ick Gor­don), as well. They ren­dered new se­lec­tions for the up­com­ing Car­ni­val, while steel­bands in the spot­light fo­cused on the melodies that her­ald­ed the yule­tide sea­son.

These choice pre­sen­ta­tions were de­liv­ered be­fore a small, but ever ap­pre­cia­tive au­di­ence, who made use of the charmed melodies that res­onat­ed from the steel­pan–the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment of T&T.

But, de­spite the lega­cy se­lec­tions from Des­per­a­does, and the par­ty-fo­cused out­pour­ing by Rene­gades, the night clear­ly went to The Co­dring­ton Pan Fam­i­ly. Field­ing just sev­en mu­si­cians, the pe­tite out­fit's high cal­i­bre pan­man­ship and su­perb or­ches­tra­tion com­pen­sat­ed for what it lost in size.

It was a per­for­mance that se­cured the un­di­vid­ed at­ten­tion of the au­di­ence as Pan Fam­i­ly sup­plied a pol­ished reper­toire laden with Christ­mas treats, as well as an in­trigu­ing mix of items to win the hearts of the gath­er­ing. Trail­ing on last Fri­day's up­beat pan feast, all roads will now lead to the pa­n­yard of four-time na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus, lo­cat­ed on the East­ern Main Road, St Au­gus­tine, to­mor­row where the fund-rais­ing ven­ture con­tin­ues. Steel or­ches­tras ad­ver­tised to join the host band for this wor­thy cause are Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders and four-time na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on So­lo Har­monites. Show­time is 8 pm.