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Friday, February 14, 2025

Two bands share Small Conventional Panorama title

by

Radhica De Silva
19 days ago
20250126

Rishi Ragoonath

The 2025 Na­tion­al Panora­ma Small Con­ven­tion­al Fi­nals end­ed in a tie on Sat­ur­day as the T&TEC New East Side Di­men­sion and Gold­en Hands Or­ches­tras de­liv­ered scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mances, both scor­ing 279 points and shar­ing the cham­pi­onship ti­tle.

Pan lovers cel­e­brat­ed at Skin­ner Park as South­ern Stars Or­ches­tra came third with 276 points and Fu­sion Steel se­cured fourth with 271. The dra­ma in­ten­si­fied when Todds Road Rhythm Raiders ar­rived late, nar­row­ly avoid­ing dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion af­ter Pan Trin­ba­go chair­man Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore in­ter­vened.

Their re­silience paid off as they tied for fifth place with Fas­ci­na­tors Pan Sym­pho­ny, Up­town Fas­ci­na­tors, and Tokyo Steel Or­ches­tra. Lord Nel­son’s clas­sic hit “Mih Lover,” was per­formed by Gold­en Hands and South­ern Stars, es­pe­cial­ly when the ca­lyp­so leg­end him­self made a sur­prise stage ap­pear­ance.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the re­sults were an­nounced, Kersh Ram­sey, arranger for T&TEC New East Side Di­men­sion, ex­pressed pride in the shared vic­to­ry. “This is my sec­ond win in two years.

When you win alone, it’s sweet­er, but we are still cham­pi­ons,” Ram­sey said. “Ku­dos to Gold­en Hands—they gave a fi­nal­ist per­for­mance tonight. The re­sults could have gone ei­ther way, but I’m grate­ful,” he added.

Ram­sey high­light­ed the chal­lenges his To­ba­go-based band faced in com­pet­ing. “Bands in Trinidad have four nights to prac­tice but we on­ly have one be­cause our pans are on the boat back to To­ba­go, and my play­ers are from the coun­try.

We are at a dis­ad­van­tage when all the oth­er bands have four nights to pre­pare but we on­ly have one be­cause of the trav­el­ling back and forth” he said. Mean­while, Gold­en Hands arranger Vanes­sa Headley-Brew­ster said the win is a con­tin­u­a­tion of their lega­cy and a trib­ute to the steel­pan art form.

“This is 33 years of build­ing some­thing from noth­ing, set­ting a gold stan­dard. It’s a tes­ta­ment to the hard work and pas­sion that goes in­to steel­pan,” Headley-Brew­ster said. She em­pha­sized the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of the in­stru­ment and the glob­al op­por­tu­ni­ties it presents.

“The world is ready for pan. It’s such a trans­for­ma­tive in­stru­ment, and we need to fo­cus on the pos­i­tives and build on them,” she added.

T&T De­fence Force Steel Or­ches­tra earned in ninth place with 269 points, fol­lowed by First Cit­i­zens To­ba­go Pan­thers in tenth. Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny placed 11th, St Mar­garet’s Su­per­stars 12th, with Panoson­ic Con­nec­tion and Road Block Steel Or­ches­tra round­ing out the com­pe­ti­tion in 13th and 14th places, re­spec­tive­ly.

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