DAVID CUFFY

The Mu­sic Schools in the Pa­n­yard Pro­gramme be­gan with a bang on Mon­day with cit­i­zens of all creeds, races and ages con­verg­ing at the des­ig­nat­ed pa­n­yards to grasp the op­por­tu­ni­ty of learn­ing to play a mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. The pro­gramme, which was de­vel­oped by the Cul­ture Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, is mak­ing good use of the es­tab­lished net­work of pa­n­yards across the coun­try to of­fer com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dents train­ing in both the prac­ti­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal as­pects of mu­sic.

"We had over 55 peo­ple com­ing in to join on Mon­day," said Shiv­on Bourne, venue co-or­di­na­tor for the pro­gramme at the Ex­o­dus Pa­n­yard. "Even the se­nior folks, way in­to their 60s, are com­ing in and ex­press­ing hap­pi­ness for the chance to ful­fill their dream of learn­ing to play a mu­si­cal in­stru­ment," he added.

Pe­ter Ale­ong, pan tu­tor at the Ex­o­dus Mu­sic School in the pa­n­yard venue, ex­pressed his en­thu­si­asm for the Gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tive. He added: "The pro­gramme is a tremen­dous ef­fort in terms of em­pow­er­ing cit­i­zens. The young stu­dents I have en­coun­tered so far are very ex­cit­ed and are ea­ger to see what is go­ing to be of­fered over the next few months.

"Many of the old­er peo­ple in Mal­ick and Barataria al­ways want­ed to play an in­stru­ment but didn't know where to start, now they have this chance," said Win­ston Par­ris, mem­ber of the Po­ten­tial Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra for over 25 years. He said the pro­gramme was giv­ing the youths of the area an av­enue to ex­press their en­er­gies and keep them busy and oc­cu­pied with a pos­i­tive ac­tiv­i­ty.

The pro­gramme of­fers in­struc­tion in the the­o­ry of mu­sic, ba­sic mu­sic sight-read­ing and 112 con­tact hours to­ward the play­ing of the steel­pan, gui­tar, sax­o­phone, trum­pet, trom­bone and clar­inet. The venues are Casablan­ca Pan The­atre (North­ern Re­gion), Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus, San­gre Grande Cordettes and Po­ten­tial Sym­pho­ny Pan The­atres (East­ern Re­gion), Cou­va Joy­lan­ders (Cen­tral Re­gion) and Ju­nior Sam­my Group Sam­my Skif­fle (South­ern Re­gion). All cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go are in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in this per­son­al and na­tion-build­ing pro­gramme that is be­ing of­fered for free.