San­dra L Blood

For the last Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion (2024-2025), High­landers Youth Steel Or­ches­tra (High­landers) nar­row­ly missed reach­ing the fi­nals for the third time in over 50 years—falling short by just one point. But with this year’s tune, David Rud­der’s Tri­ni 2 de Bone, the band is pulling out all the stops, aim­ing for a stronger per­for­mance in the 2025-2026 Panora­ma sea­son. Re­hearsals be­gan in Au­gust un­der arranger Joeth Roberts and drill mas­ters Adilize Bap­tiste, as­sist­ed by An­der­son Bap­tiste.

Like the sin­gle-pan com­pe­ti­tion, Ju­nior Panora­ma goes straight from the qual­i­fy­ing round to fi­nals, giv­ing bands on­ly one chance to de­liv­er a flaw­less per­for­mance from the very first note.

The High­landers’ jour­ney to promi­nence is a sto­ry of per­se­ver­ance. In 2000, while shar­ing a small space with an­oth­er band on Bertie Mar­shall Boule­vard (for­mer­ly Old St Joseph Road/Back Road) in Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille, they reached the Panora­ma fi­nals for the first time in 54 years, plac­ing sixth. They re­peat­ed this feat in 2023, again se­cur­ing sixth place.

The band is man­aged by Laven­til­lean Robert Her­nan­dez, a for­mer lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al qual­i­ty analy­sis ex­pert. Her­nan­dez ac­knowl­edged that past suc­cess­es were no easy feat and were made pos­si­ble through sup­port from var­i­ous en­ti­ties. This year, aim­ing even high­er will re­quire sig­nif­i­cant as­sis­tance.

High­landers is seek­ing at least $250,000 to fund a strong show­ing at Panora­ma 2025-2026 and sup­port the broad­er Car­ni­val sea­son. They are al­so look­ing for a cor­po­rate part­ner as a long-term spon­sor, hav­ing last re­ceived cor­po­rate sup­port twice be­fore the mid-1970s.

Her­nan­dez, known for his in­clu­sive ap­proach, re­vi­talised the band and up­grad­ed the pa­n­yard. The mod­ern fa­cil­i­ty now in­cludes air-con­di­tioned au­dio-vi­su­al aca­d­e­m­ic and con­fer­ence rooms, ex­ec­u­tive and meet­ing spaces, a cafe­te­ria, lounge ar­eas, se­cure gal­leries and bal­conies, male and fe­male bath­rooms, and a con­vert­ible front yard—cre­at­ing a mul­ti­fac­eted en­vi­ron­ment for mu­sic, learn­ing, and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Mu­sic is the tool to break down bound­aries and cre­ate healthy uni­ty,” Her­nan­dez said, em­pha­sis­ing the role of mu­sic in bridg­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

Guid­ed by the pil­lars of loy­al­ty, re­spect, hon­esty, and dis­ci­pline, the High­landers moved in­to their mod­ernised res­i­dence at East­ern Main Road, Suc­cess Vil­lage (near Er­i­ca Street) in De­cem­ber 2023, cour­tesy of the East Port of Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EPOS).

Un­der Roberts and the drill mas­ters, sec­tion lead­ers—Jae­don Noel and Naiema George (tenors), Zarya Mar­tin (dou­ble tenor), Che Hen­ry and Aca­cia Brown (dou­ble sec­onds), Mala­ki Warn­er and Ever­son Bready (cel­los), Isi­ah Bready (gui­tar), and Je­re­mi­ah Jag­mo­han and An­necia Ed­wards (bass)—are re­spon­si­ble for de­liv­er­ing a top-tier per­for­mance.

Par­ents play a vi­tal role in the band’s suc­cess, help­ing stu­dents bal­ance school­work with pan prac­tice. Some stu­dents com­plete home­work and re­ceive aca­d­e­m­ic sup­port in the air-con­di­tioned au­dio-vi­su­al room from 3.30 to 4.55 pm be­fore head­ing to pan re­hearsals from 5 to 7 pm. Fundrais­ing is al­so a key fo­cus.

A 14-mem­ber Par­ent Sup­port and Fo­cus Com­mit­tee—com­pris­ing Ar­ri­anne George, An­neliese Hing Wan, Gra­cious Swan-Lash­ley, Jah-Keb­ba Brown, Lester Sa­landy, Ravi Jag­mo­han, Omen­ta Cum­mings, Va­lerie Hazell, Melin­da Noel, Patrick Mar­tin, Chan­ice Mar­tin, Syd­ney Blake, Sal­isha Mor­ris, and Cur­lene Hack­ette—was es­tab­lished to sup­port the band.

High­landers is cur­rent­ly rais­ing funds for uni­forms, ad­di­tion­al in­stru­ments, drum sets, pan racks, a mo­bile trail­er for road per­for­mances, arranger fees, and re­mu­ner­a­tion for af­ter-school and mu­sic teach­ers.

Two fundrais­ers have been launched:

A steel­pan-de­signed do­na­tion card val­ued at $300, com­pris­ing mul­ti­ple de­nom­i­na­tions. Lost or un­ac­count­ed cards by No­vem­ber 25, 2025, must be re­im­bursed by the bear­er.

An­nu­al bin­go: sched­uled for No­vem­ber 30 at 34 East­ern Main Road, Suc­cess Vil­lage. Gates open at 4 pm; ad­mis­sion is $100 (in­cludes two bin­go cards). Food and bev­er­ages are avail­able; cash jack­pot and door prizes are to be won.

Tick­ets are avail­able via 750.0460, 297-4022, and 797-5887.

The High­landers are sched­uled to per­form in the pre­lim­i­nary round be­tween De­cem­ber 13 and 14.