Wes­ley Gib­bings

Ti­tled Re­nais­sance to de­note tri­umphant pas­sage through the pan­dem­ic, the Bird­song Acad­e­my’s an­nu­al Camp Clos­ing Con­cert host­ed at Queen’s Hall last Thurs­day es­tab­lished be­yond all rea­son­able doubt, the 50-year-old steel­pan or­gan­i­sa­tion’s un­de­ni­able stature as a mod­el in­sti­tu­tion in the field of mu­sic per­for­mance and ed­u­ca­tion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, with hy­per­ac­tive camp di­rec­tor/MC Ny­ol Man­swell at the mi­cro­phone, any­thing can hap­pen … and it did … es­pe­cial­ly beau­ti­ful things in­volv­ing a cadre of 117 hap­py campers and a thrilling three-hour mu­si­cal jour­ney be­fore a ca­pac­i­ty au­di­ence.

It was note­wor­thy that for the first time in the camp’s 19-year his­to­ry there were no re­turn campers.

Man­swell put it down to one out­come of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic that had tem­porar­i­ly shut things down.

In pre­vi­ous years, for ex­am­ple, re­turnees ac­count­ed for up to 60 per cent of the camp­ing pop­u­la­tion. This, how­ev­er, did not stop the on­ward march or, as Man­swell put it, en­gage­ment of a re­nais­sance.

And what too is a Bird­song event with­out mu­si­cal di­rec­tor, Der­ri­anne Dyett? Like Man­swell, she too is a grad­u­ate of the Bird­song camp ex­pe­ri­ence who now bears im­pres­sive aca­d­e­m­ic cre­den­tials.

On the evening she led the ex­pe­ri­enced Bird­song Evo­lu­tion en­sem­ble, com­pris­ing sev­er­al camp alum­ni, to bring a more ac­com­plished touch to the pro­ceed­ings at the end.

The band is con­sid­ered to be a valu­able lega­cy of the late Raff Robert­son’s “small en­sem­ble”.

Vo­cal coach Jas­mine Adams al­so made ex­pert con­tri­bu­tions per­form­ing along­side the young choir, and lat­er, as a soloist de­liv­er­ing My Fun­ny Valen­tine, the time­less 1937 love song.

From Lord Kitch­en­er’s 1978 clas­sic, Sug­ar Bum Bum to Mas­ter KG’s Jerusale­ma to Bach’s Pre­lude #1 the mu­si­cal jour­ney was ex­ten­sive and for the most part, com­pe­tent­ly ex­e­cut­ed by young boys and girls—many of whom were in­tro­duced to their in­stru­ments for the first time just five weeks pri­or to the show.

There were nu­mer­ous pore-rais­ing mo­ments such as when the se­nior gui­tarists pre­sent­ed Nick John­ston’s Sand Mon­ster or when the voice duo of Jabari Williams and Ever­li­na Williams ren­dered Ste­vie Won­der’s Over­joyed, ac­com­pa­nied by the se­nior or­ches­tra.

A short note on Williams, who is an 18-year-old bari­tone who pro­vid­ed this writer’s per­son­al high­light of the evening. He sang twice: the first time with Syann Ward, an­oth­er amaz­ing young per­former.

To­geth­er they had shift­ed tem­po from Sug­ar Bum Bum with a mes­meris­ing ver­sion of La­dy Gaga’s Shal­low.

Hear­ing the Ju­nior Wind and Brass band in­ter­act with the young pan­nists, and 35 plus-mem­ber choir was al­so quite an im­pact­ful mo­ment of the evening.

The post-in­ter­mis­sion ses­sion was what brought out the so-called se­niors’ with crowd favoured per­for­mances of Bil­ly Joel’s Just the Way You Are and Pana­ma by David Rud­der.

Re­nais­sance was not among the bet­ter out­ings for a Bird­song camp, and some rusti­ness showed. But there was no re­duc­tion in the en­thu­si­asm and af­fec­tion dis­played by per­form­ers and their au­di­ence.

Ac­cord­ing to Man­swell, who is vi­su­al­ly im­paired, “this was ob­vi­ous­ly not the best show, but it was a good plat­form to launch from. We are re­build­ing.”

That said, there were spe­cial mo­ments that lift­ed Queen’s Hall from its foun­da­tions.

The evening closed with a per­for­mance of the Bird­song “an­them” based on its long­stand­ing com­mit­ment to de­liv­er “Pan for the Peo­ple.”

Who isn’t wait­ing for more?