Sto­ry, pic­tures by

In­nis Fran­cis

The 2023-24 parang sea­son end­ed on a high note last Sat­ur­day with the Les Rois Parang Fes­ti­val at the St An­tho­ny’s RC Church in Point Fortin.Cel­e­bra­tions be­gan with the Na­tion­al Parang As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T’s (NPATT) church ser­vice, which spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance this year as the or­gan­i­sa­tion cel­e­brates its 53rd an­niver­sary in April. It was the sec­ond year the ser­vice was held at the Point Fortin church.

Bands fea­tured at the fes­ti­val were Amantes De Par­ran­da, San­couche, Vo­ces Jovenes, Los Alum­nos de San Juan, La Div­ina Pas­to­ra and Los Ruisenores.

NPATT pres­i­dent Ali­cia Jag­gasar said the de­ci­sion to host the event in Point Fortin was prompt­ed by parish priest Fa­ther Cor­nelius Phillip’s trust and be­lief in parang mu­sic.

How­ev­er, she said the parang fra­ter­ni­ty strug­gled to com­pete with Car­ni­val as the two sea­sons over­lapped.

“I speak for a lot of cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Car­ni­val this year was so very close, so every­where you go, every Christ­mas event you had to deal with the Car­ni­val,” she said.

“There was a lot of so­ca com­ing in­to it, so some­times we had to ask the DJ to play a lit­tle parang, so­ca parang. We found that it (Christ­mas sea­son) was very short, es­pe­cial­ly for this year.

“When it’s (Car­ni­val) in March, we have a lit­tle more play­time. But when it is in Feb­ru­ary, so ear­ly. we find that Car­ni­val en­croach­es on our Christ­mas. So like for me I would be cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas in Car­ni­val. We would like to reach out to T&T to sup­port this art form, it is an art form that brings joy to peo­ple.”

The Les Rois Parang Fes­ti­val is the cel­e­bra­tion of the vis­it of the three kings to ba­by Je­sus bear­ing the gifts of gold, frank­in­cense, and myrrh. It al­so sig­nal the end of the parang sea­son.

Jag­gasar said one of the pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments out of the parang sea­son was the in­crease in youth par­tic­i­pa­tion.

She added: “We launched the first-ever parang tent at La Joya and we are look­ing for­ward to the parang tent next year.

“We had a lot of sup­port, so our pres­ence was felt all through the sea­son and we are hop­ing com­ing in­to 2024 that we con­tin­ue with that mo­men­tum.

“One of the things we saw in 2023 was the youth par­tic­i­pa­tion in parang. A lot of youth bands com­ing out, and al­so when we look at the au­di­ences we see a lot of youths form­ing part of the au­di­ence at parang events.

“The Paramin event was not just ma­ture peo­ple, it was filled with young peo­ple. So when I see the young peo­ple parangin’ like from the ju­nior parang schools and how they are com­ing to the event, I know parang is in safe hands and we are hap­py to be do­ing what we are do­ing to en­cour­age the youth of T&T in some­thing pos­i­tive.”

Jag­gasar said tra­di­tion­al­ly dur­ing the parang sea­son cel­e­bra­tions are held through­out T&T end­ing in Ari­ma.

How­ev­er, there are al­ready plans to host the event in Point Fortin in 2025 for the third con­sec­u­tive year.