Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

One of this coun­try’s old­est (since 1968) and top medi­um steel­bands, Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra, is on a mis­sion to achieve three key goals be­fore Panora­ma 2026, the most ur­gent be­ing se­cur­ing fund­ing to com­pete in the com­pe­ti­tion. The or­ches­tra’s oth­er goals in­clude invit­ing the com­mu­ni­ty back in­to the pa­n­yard and re­cruit­ing new play­ers.

Dur­ing prac­tice at the Morne Co­co Road, Pe­tit Val­ley, pa­n­yard on Tues­day, new­ly in­stalled chair­man Kevin Carim­bo­cas said the band is head­ing in­to Car­ni­val 2026 with­out a spon­sor. Carim­bo­cas re­vealed that the band needs ap­prox­i­mate­ly $250,000 to par­tic­i­pate in Panora­ma 2026, which be­gins in Jan­u­ary, but he said Val­ley Harps re­main op­ti­mistic, as their fundrais­ers so far have gen­er­at­ed about 15 per cent of that amount ($37,500).

“So it is not all doom and gloom; it is just hard work. We’re go­ing to get there soon­er or lat­er,” he pos­i­tive­ly pro­ject­ed. While they are al­ready in the com­pe­ti­tion, Carim­bo­cas said mon­ey is need­ed for uni­forms, trans­porta­tion and equip­ment.

Back in 2017, the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB) spon­sored the band, but that re­la­tion­ship has end­ed.

The Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra al­so needs 70 to 90 play­ers to par­tic­i­pate in the Medi­um Band cat­e­go­ry, but they are not even halfway there.

“We have about 22 peo­ple in the yard right now from the area, which is great be­cause last year the num­bers were low­er than that. So we had to im­port a lot of play­ers,” he said. In 2024, the band was dis­qual­i­fied from the com­pe­ti­tion for not hav­ing the min­i­mum num­ber of play­ers. Carim­bo­cas said this hap­pened be­cause they re­lied heav­i­ly on im­port­ed play­ers, and sup­port for the band was weak, as there were very few pan­nists from the com­mu­ni­ty.

“You would ac­tu­al­ly go to sup­port the band and feel like you had no­body in the band be­cause it’s so lim­it­ed. That is one of the things we want to change, but we al­so want to win, which is why we put in the work,” he said.

While they are try­ing to phase out im­port­ed play­ers, Val­ley Harps is widen­ing its re­cruit­ment pool and invit­ing pan­nists, any­one as­pir­ing to play the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, and pan en­thu­si­asts from Diego Mar­tin, Mar­aval and even Care­nage to join the fam­i­ly.

As they try to build a re­la­tion­ship with the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty, Carim­bo­cas said they have al­ready dis­cussed how they will man­age the noise, es­pe­cial­ly clos­er to Panora­ma. He said that even be­fore the cur­rent dis­cus­sion, Val­ley Harps in­ten­tion­al­ly cut off prac­tice at 9.30 pm to re­spect res­i­dents.

Play­ing with the Pe­tit Val­ley band since the 1970s is vet­er­an pan­nist Lennox Au­gus­tus, who en­cour­aged young peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty to come and learn the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, but made it clear that it is no easy work, al­though worth it. “It took me to France twice and Cu­ba… I will play pan un­til I die,” he stat­ed.

Up­on hear­ing the sit­u­a­tion, the Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore, told Guardian Me­dia that she will reach out to the band. She said the as­so­ci­a­tion had some mon­ey for Val­ley Harps since be­fore the cap­tain died, and the band should al­so re­ceive as­sis­tance from the Gov­ern­ment.

“They re­ceive $20,000, which is as­sis­tance for an un­spon­sored band,” she said.

As for the play­ers, Ram­sey-Moore en­cour­aged pan bands to have a two-year train­ing pro­gramme to bring in young peo­ple.

Ram­sey-Moore said Val­ley Harps is spe­cial to Pan Trin­ba­go, and she would love to see them in the 2026 com­pe­ti­tion.

Sec­re­tary of the band, Can­dice Charles-Brown, said they held an Au­gust chil­dren’s camp, vis­it­ed schools, al­lowed the church steel band to prac­tice in the yard, and formed a younger com­mit­tee. “We are just invit­ing peo­ple in­to this space be­cause, at the end of the day, Val­ley Harps is a com­mu­ni­ty space. We are invit­ing peo­ple in so that we can vibe to­geth­er as one,” she said.

Ear­li­er this year, for­mer Val­ley Harps Cap­tain Roland (Jero) Au­gus­tus passed away, and the band is do­ing every­thing in its pow­er—rais­ing funds, re­cruit­ing play­ers and in­volv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty—to en­sure they per­form Mi­cal Te­ja’s Hall of Fame in his ho­n­our.

“Jero is ir­re­place­able. He had his style of do­ing things, and I don’t think any­body can fill that role. The com­mit­ment he had for this band, which spanned years, is over­whelm­ing and out­stand­ing,” Charles-Brown said.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the band can call Charles-Brown at 797-3971 or Carim­bo­cas at 308-7256.