Word reaching T&T Guardian indicates that this year's New York Panorama final was one of the best ever. Held last Saturday night at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, the competition is one of the blue riband events at the annual West Indian Labour Day Carnival. With ten of North America's best steelbands facing the judges, this battle royal brought some of the best young arrangers on the planet, including Arddin Herbert, Yohan Popwell, Terrence "BJ" Marcelle, Seion Gomez and the fast-rising Andre White. Bands in the fray included Harmony, Pantonic, Metro, Crossfire, Pan Sonatas, Casym, Despers USA, D'Radoes and Ad Lib, playing popular Carnival 2011 tunes like Benjai's Trini, De Fosto's Do Something for Pan, Showtime, Soca Night, Doh Be on Dat and Destra's Calling Meh. On a night of glorious pan music, when the smoke cleared the judges declared Ad Lib the 2011 champion with White's scintillating arrangement of Do Something for Pan.
Schooled in New York, Herbert's arrangement of Doh Be On Dat placed Casym second in the final, an improvement on his fourth placing in Trinidad with CAL Invaders. Despite stirring the crowd with his arrangement of Trini, Marcelle's D'Radoes was adjudged third, followed by Pan Sonatas, playing Popwell's arrangement of Showtime. With violence and gunplay marring Monday's festivities, one bright spark on Eastern Parkway for J'Ouvert was the playing of D'Radoes, especially with Benjai's Trini. Georgia Caribbean Carnival Inc (GCC) and 3Wise Women Promotions are excited to celebrate Calypso History Month 2011 with an all-inclusive Mix, Mingle & a Movie on October 1, at DeKalb County's Porter Sanford III Performing Arts & Community Center, Atlanta, Georgia. The movie to be screened is the acclaimed Calypso Dreams.
Speaking on behalf of the organisers, Sharon Britt said this week: "The educational piece in this celebration is our opportunity to present a workshop-Calypso the Art Form-to children at an area middle school. "The workshop is a project we started last October and we are working to develop this programme going forward. We intend enlightening our youth, and even those who are not so young, of some of our living legends, young and not so young in calypso, especially the living artistes who appeared in the film." Britt said she was working with the Head of the Art Department at the school to create a visual expression of Calypso the Art Form for display at the evening's event and, as part of the presentation at the workshop for the children. Among the calypso legends to be highlighted are Mighty Sparrow, Black Stalin, Nelson, Calypso Rose, Lord Superior, Mighty Bomber, Singing Sandra Crazy, Mighty Terror, Relator, David Rudder, Chalkdust, Baron, Sugar Aloes, SuperBlue, Brother Valentino, Bro Resistance, Aaron Duncan, Karene Asche, and, of course, the darlings of soca-Machel Montano, Fay Ann Lyons and Bunji Garlin.