Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

St Mar­garet’s Boys’ An­gli­can School and Holy Faith Con­vent, Pe­nal, are the coun­try’s lat­est Panora­ma champs, af­ter top­ping their re­spec­tive cat­e­gories in the Na­tion­al Schools Ju­nior Panora­ma Fi­nals at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

In the Pri­ma­ry Schools cat­e­go­ry, the Bel­mont-based St Mar­garet’s Boys’ de­throned de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Guaico Pres­by­ter­ian Steel Or­ches­tra.

St Mar­garet’s won with their ren­di­tion of Olatun­ji’ Year­wood’s 2023 hit En­gine Room, and Guaico Pres­by­ter­ian placed sec­ond with Machel Mon­tano’s Like a Boss.

So­ca artiste Olatun­ji, who was on hand to wit­ness the win­ning per­for­mances, said it was a dream come true hear­ing his song per­formed on the steel­pan.

“Wow, to­tal­ly amaz­ing, I mean the skills, the tal­ent, the vibe, every­thing was so amaz­ing. To see the youths play­ing En­gine Room on pan is a big dream of mine, to see pan play­ing my mu­sic and to see the youths and them do­ing it like that, amaz­ing,” he said.

The 2018 X Fac­tor UK con­tes­tant said what he saw when he joined the band on stage was re­mark­able and gave him hope for the fu­ture, even with the coun­try’s cur­rent crime prob­lems.

“I think this is what we need to fo­cus on be­cause this is what we do. Trinidad and To­ba­go, we know about cul­ture, ca­lyp­so, steel­pan, this is what we do, and not the crime and the mur­der and all the non­sense there. This is what we need to fo­cus on,” he said.

The St Mar­garet’s pre­sen­ta­tion fea­tured an en­gine room with the stu­dents dressed in over­alls. Some had card­board trains at­tached to their out­fit, sim­i­lar to those on the front of their pan rack.

In ad­di­tion to Year­wood, the band was ac­com­pa­nied by tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters, in­clud­ing Moko Jumbies and Dame Lor­raines.

Al­so spot­ted in the band was Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young, who as­sist­ed with pulling the pan racks on stage and cheered from the side­lines dur­ing the per­for­mance.

Among the pri­ma­ry schools, San Fer­nan­do Boys’ RC placed third, St Mary’s Gov­ern­ment was fourth and Beth­le­hem Boys’ and Girls’ RC came in fifth.

Vance Riv­er RC, the Uni­ver­si­ty School, St Gabriel’s RC, Nel­son Street Boys’, Cou­va AC, Febeau Gov­ern­ment and Fifth Com­pa­ny placed sixth to 12th re­spec­tive­ly.

In the Sec­ondary Schools cat­e­go­ry, Holy Faith Con­vent, Pe­nal, took the ti­tle for their per­for­mance of Kees’ Diefen­thaller’s Sa­van­nah Grass, while Prov­i­dence Girls’/QRC, with Fuh Spite by Kes, and Na­pari­ma Com­bined with Call My Name by De­stra tied for sec­ond place.