Pe­ter Ray Blood

Mag­nif­i­cent is the on­ly word I can find to de­scribe Con­stel­la­tions II, staged by Massy Trinidad All Stars at Queen's Hall, last Sat­ur­day. A fol­low up to Con­stel­la­tions I, staged by the Duke Street street or­ches­tra at Church of Our La­dy of the Rosary last month, this edi­tion fea­tured a pro­gramme of mixed per­for­mances show­cas­ing voice, pan and oth­er con­ven­tion­al in­stru­ments.

Do­ing a won­der­ful job as show host by main­tain­ing a seam­less pro­gramme, Gerelle Forbes gave the packed venue snip­pets of All Stars' il­lus­tri­ous his­to­ry dat­ing back to the band's pre­vi­ous meta­mor­pho­sis dur­ing an 80-year span.

All Stars opened the evening in a dra­mat­ic fan­fare per­form­ing Strauss' Sun­rise Fan­fare (Thus Spoke Zarathus­tra), con­duct­ed by Deryck Nurse. Its mu­si­cians re­splen­dent in gray en­sem­bles, the band then played a per­fect in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Jo­hann Se­bas­t­ian Bach's Air on a G String. So ex­cel­lent was the per­for­mance of this piece, one could on­ly imag­ine had this been the fi­nal of a Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, it would have tak­en some­thing spe­cial to bet­ter All Stars.

Mem­o­ry was next, fol­lowed by In a Monastery Gar­den, de­liv­ered with bird calls and bells, and im­bued by the re­mark­able vo­cals of Ray­mond Ed­wards and Nigel Floyd. The duo al­so sang This is the Mo­ment, a piece im­mor­talised in Frank Wild­horn and Steve Cu­d­en's mu­si­cal Jekyll & Hyde.

The clas­si­cal mood was main­tained by young guest artiste 16-year-old Rasheed Guy's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Flight of the Bum­ble­bee, an or­ches­tral in­ter­lude writ­ten by Niko­lai Rim­sky-Ko­r­sakov.

The rel­a­tive­ly new­ly formed Trinidad All Stars Youth Steel Or­ches­tra showed its com­pe­tence by per­form­ing The Prayer and This Christ­mas, un­der the ba­ton of Kygel Ben­jamin. More youth fol­lowed as Caleb Hart, a young artiste who had on­ly en­tered the All Stars "fam­i­ly" the pre­vi­ous Tues­day, ac­com­pa­nied him­self on gui­tar to sing a dit­ty en­ti­tled Fam­i­ly. He was re­ward­ed with tu­mul­tuous ap­plause.

Young sax­o­phon­ist Daniel Ryan, a Grade 8 mu­si­cian, was ac­com­pa­nied by All Stars when he played John Lennon's Imag­ine. The steel or­ches­tra showed why it is a mul­ti­ple Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val cham­pi­on when Nurse led the band through Von Suppe's Morn­ing, Noon and Night. At the point, main­ly be­cause of the ex­hil­a­rat­ing mu­sic, pa­trons and mu­si­cians alike need­ed to take a breather and in­ter­mis­sion was called.

Up­on the re­sump­tion of the show, Dane Gul­ston and Friends, in­clu­sive of Adri­an Philbert and Clive Tele­maque per­formed a few items, fol­lowed by Trinidad All Stars do­ing Bal­let Switch, a med­ley of ex­cerpts from Swan Lake, Waltz of the Flow­ers, Chil­dren's March, Czardas, Dance of the Moor­ish Slave and Sabre Dance.

Ryan made a sec­ond ap­pear­ance, join­ing All Stars for the pop­u­lar Sam­ba de Or­feu. Renowned gui­tarist Joey Rivers then joined the steel­band for O Hol­ly Night, played on acoustic gui­tar, and Christ­mas is Yours, for which he switched to elec­tron­ic gui­tar.

Briefly de­part­ing from the mu­sic, All Stars busy body Staci-Ann Patrick ad­min­is­tered the pre­sen­ta­tion of gifts to the night's two con­duc­tors and in­tro­duced re­tir­ing All Stars leader Beres­ford "Berry" Hunte, un­der whose lead­er­ship the band host­ed three edi­tions of Clas­si­cal Jew­els, won Pan is Beau­ti­ful and Na­tion­al Panora­ma ti­tles, and strength­ened the band's re­la­tion­ship with its spon­sor. Hunte, al­so man­aged the band's tours to sev­er­al over­seas des­ti­na­tions. Hunte was giv­en his gift by in­com­ing All Stars man­ag­er Nigel Williams.

On a light note, Patrick an­nounced that All Stars would do an­oth­er first as a steel­band, and pa­trons seemed quite sur­prised, when its mem­bers did the very pop­u­lar Man­nequin Chal­lenge.

For a fi­nale, All Stars played Dance a Cachua, a piece which so­licit­ed to­tal au­di­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion. And so, as it start­ed, Con­stel­la­tions II end­ed with fan­fare, some­thing that is syn­ony­mous with all pre­vi­ous pro­duc­tions of this mag­ni­tude that All Stars has staged. Con­stel­la­tions II was not just an as­sem­blage of mag­nif­i­cent mu­sic but it was a no­va of sus­tained in­can­des­cent in­ten­si­ty.

Masim­ba re­sistschal­lenge

Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba re­sist­ed a stout chal­lenge on Sun­day to re­tain the pres­i­den­cy of Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co). Chal­lenged by Win­ston Pe­ters (Gyp­sy) and Morel Pe­ters (Lu­ta), Masim­ba, ar­tis­ti­cal­ly known as Broth­er Re­sis­tance, will sit the lead­er­ship seat for the next three years.

Tu­co na­tion­al elec­tions were held at the VIP Lounge of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain and was held in a cor­dial man­ner, with ca­lyp­so­ni­ans from across Trinidad con­verg­ing all day at the venue, joined via Skype by their col­leagues in To­ba­go.

Pop­u­lar ca­lyp­so­ni­ans al­so vy­ing for posts in­clud­ed Ex­plain­er, Du­ane O'Con­nor, Ab­bi Black­man, Twig­gy, De­lamo, Ras Kom­man­da, de Mighty Tri­ni and La­dy Adana. Di­vas Cabaret In­ter­na­tion­al ca­lyp­so tent own­er Dr Rudolph Ot­t­ley was de­feat­ed by Lennox Lon­don in the race for Mar­ket­ing Man­ag­er, while Ras Kom­man­da re­placed Kare­ga Man­dela as Tu­co's PRO.

The new Tu­co ex­ec­u­tive in­cludes Ains­ley King (vice pres­i­dent); Kass­man (gen­er­al sec­re­tary); Shirlaine Hen­drick­son (as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary); Lasana (trea­sur­er); An­tho­ny John­son (as­sis­tant trea­sur­er); De­von Seale (as­sis­tant PRO); Ca­lyp­so Kerr (Wel­fare Of­fi­cer); Mea­gan Sylvester (Ed­u­ca­tion and Re­search Of­fi­cer); and; Twig­gy and Joseph Adams (Trustees).

Parang Down­the Is­lands

You are in­vit­ed, to­mor­row, to take the Wa­ter Taxi on a jour­ney to Ponche de Cr�me and Parang on Nel­son Is­land in the spir­it of the Christ­mas sea­son. Host­ed by The Na­tion­al Trust of T&T, pa­trons are in­vit­ed to tour the is­land, see ex­hi­bi­tions and en­joy live per­for­mances by Los Alum­nos de San Juan and Los Ami­gos Can­ta­dores.

Los Alum­nos de San Juan, the nine-time Na­tion­al Parang cham­pi­on, fea­tures Parang Queen from 1997 to 2012 Ali­cia Jag­gasar as its lead vo­cal­ist and cu­a­tro play­er.

Los Ami­gos Can­ta­dores keeps the tra­di­tion alive with their elec­tri­fy­ing per­for­mances of tra­di­tion­al parang. They have rep­re­sent­ed T&T in Hart­ford Con­necti­cut con­duct­ing a se­ries of work­shops on the tra­di­tions of parang in T&T.

Tick­ets are avail­able at the of­fice of the Na­tion­al Trust, Ster­ling Build­ing, 68-70 Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, and the Wa­ter Taxi Ter­mi­nals North and South.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, call 225-4750 or 277-6105.