Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

As the 35th Bi­en­ni­al TT Mu­sic Fes­ti­val South Cen­tral com­pe­ti­tion be­gan on Mon­day, chair­man Jes­sel Mur­ray said there is a need to adapt to the chang­ing cul­tur­al land­scape.

In his wel­com­ing re­marks at Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do, Mur­ray not­ed that for many years the fes­ti­val has been a bea­con of artis­tic ex­pres­sion show­cas­ing the im­mense cre­ativ­i­ty and skills of the coun­try’s young and tal­ent­ed mu­si­cians.

“How­ev­er as we re­flect on its longevi­ty we must al­ways ac­knowl­edge the need for change. While the fes­ti­val has un­doubt­ed­ly served as a plat­form for our artistes to shine, we must recog­nise that our cul­tur­al land­scape is con­stant­ly evolv­ing. To en­sure the con­tin­ued rel­e­vance and suc­cess of the TT Mu­sic Fes­ti­val we must be will­ing to em­brace in­no­va­tion and adapt to the chang­ing times,” he said.

While the fes­ti­val has its un­der­pin­ning in clas­si­cal mu­sic, which re­mains the cen­tre­piece of the reper­toire, Mur­ray said so­ci­ety is in­cred­i­bly di­verse with a wealth of mu­si­cal gen­res and tra­di­tions wait­ing to be ex­plored.

“We must work to­geth­er to en­sure that the fes­ti­val con­tin­ues to re­flect this di­ver­si­ty pro­vid­ing a plat­form for artistes of all back­grounds to share their unique voic­es and ex­pe­ri­ences,” he said. Mur­ray al­so sug­gest­ed that they em­brace tech­nol­o­gy and utilise so­cial me­dia to pro­mote the fes­ti­val.

Recog­nis­ing the im­por­tance of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to mu­sic, he said it should not be lim­it­ed to those who could af­ford ex­pen­sive tick­ets or trav­el to pres­ti­gious venues, which is why this year they have grant­ed free ad­mis­sion to the fes­ti­val. Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, the fes­ti­val pa­tron, and her hus­band, at­tor­ney Ker­wyn Gar­cia, SC, at­tend­ed the event.

Af­ter the young per­form­ers graced the stage, the re­sults were an­nounced.

In the folk song so­lo cat­e­go­ry, Josi­ah Pierre won with his ren­di­tion of Stut­ter­ing Pas­tor. The win­ner of the Ca­lyp­so So­lo was Gi­an­na Grif­fith with her per­for­mance of Watch Out My Chil­dren.

Pupils of the Anstey Memo­r­i­al Girls’ An­gli­can won the Pri­ma­ry School Folk Song Choir cat­e­go­ry with Jumbie in De Road while the stu­dents of Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School se­cured the top po­si­tion in the Ju­nior Folk Song Choir with a med­ley, Siya Ham­ba and Queen Anne O.

Je­re­my Greene of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege won the Street Pan so­lo cat­e­go­ry with his per­for­mance of Pan Par­ran­da by Jit Sama­roo.