Yvonne Webb

Cousins Stephen and Ja­da Thomas not on­ly won the Dr KUA In­niss Cup for Pi­ano Duet 12 and un­der yes­ter­day, they al­so stole the hearts of the au­di­ence at the Na­pari­ma Bowl, San Fer­nan­do.

In an un­prece­dent­ed move the au­di­ence burst in­to ap­plause as the youngest com­peti­tors demon­strat­ed their ver­sa­til­i­ty on the ivory keys, dur­ing the Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship round of the 29th Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. In the end, ad­ju­di­ca­tors Dr John Paul John­son, Dr Car­men He­le­na Tellez and Dr Jan Har­ring­ton all agreed that while the three par­tic­i­pat­ing groups were won­der­ful, they de­lib­er­at­ed on who did the best job. Dr John­son, in pre­sent­ing the re­sults, said Stephen and Ja­da dis­played all the char­ac­ter­is­tics which made for a great duet. He said they demon­strat­ed the abil­i­ty to do the hand crossover with ease, while show­ing sen­si­tiv­i­ty to each oth­er's abil­i­ty to work in­de­pen­dent­ly as well as to­geth­er. The re­sults were greet­ed with more rous­ing ap­plause and hugs and kiss­es for the two tots. Fol­low­ing the com­pe­ti­tion, Stephen, nine, a stu­dent of Fyz­abad Pres­by­ter­ian School, and Ja­da, sev­en, a pupil of St Gabriel's Girls School, both were con­fi­dent they would have won. "I knew we were go­ing to win," Ja­da, of Mon Re­pos, said. "Some­how she en­forced it," Stephen replied. He ex­plained: "She told me, 'Stephen when we go on stage you must prac­tise be­fore you start.'" The cousins be­gan play­ing the pi­ano last March un­der the tute­lage of their aunt Dawn Mar­cano.

This was their first com­pe­ti­tion. They said they prac­tised every week­end at the Ce­celia's School of Mu­sic, named af­ter their late grand­moth­er. Asked how they were go­ing to cel­e­brate their vic­to­ry Stephen replied: "With lots of cake and ice-cream. We may even go out." Amidst the cel­e­bra­tion, the Mu­sic Fes­ti­val Com­mit­tee was crit­i­cised for its in­abil­i­ty to at­tract spon­sors of tro­phies for the var­i­ous cat­e­gories. The crit­i­cal dis­course fol­lowed the Recorder So­lo cat­e­go­ry, where three dif­fer­ent groups and ages, in D 15, 16 and 17 a, b and c, all had to com­pete for one tro­phy–the Es­bert Aguil­era tro­phy–be­cause spon­sors had not come for­ward to do­nate cups. John­son not­ed the dif­fi­cul­ty in judg­ing so many dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of the recorder, when each piece had its ex­cep­tion­al chal­lenges. In the end, it all came down to mu­si­cian­ship and who fol­lowed the ex­am­ple the best. As Daniel Roberts, rep­re­sent­ing North, was pre­sent­ed with the tro­phy, John­son said he hoped in the next two years when the com­pe­ti­tion was held again, there would be donors will­ing to give the or­gan­i­sa­tion mon­ey for a cup.

In the Boys Vo­cal So­lo 8-10 years, Kyle Mulchan was award­ed the Lindy-Ann Bod­den-Ritch Tro­phy for his per­for­mance of the test piece Grand Fa­ther Clock. Jes­si­ca Julien, of St Au­gus­tine Girls' High School, the on­ly en­trant in the Vi­o­la So­lo (low­er) 19 and un­der, walked away with the TTMA Tro­phy and came in for com­men­da­tion from John­son for her mu­si­cal han­dling of the in­stru­ment. He lament­ed that there were no oth­er com­peti­tors for that in­stru­ment (a cross be­tween the vi­o­lin and the cel­lo) and urged her to con­tin­ue play­ing. Kelsha Williams, of Ch­agua­nas South Sec­ondary School, beat three oth­er com­peti­tors from the South and To­ba­go to walk away with the Gret­ta Tay­lor Tro­phy in the Girls Vo­cal So­lo 13-15. The test piece for this cat­e­go­ry was Jen­nifer/Jan­nifer. On­ly two com­peti­tors, Na­pari­ma Col­lege's Valmi­ki Ra­moutar and Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary stu­dent Tama­rau Dick­son vied for the Vi­o­lin So­lo cat­e­go­ry, but the fe­male chal­lenger was the one who got to keep the Es­mond Wal­ters Tro­phy.