Vidya Thurab

The adage "one can nev­er be too old to learn" cer­tain­ly ap­plied on a hot, sun­ny evening last month at the Bish­op Anstey High School's au­di­to­ri­um, on Keate Street, Port-of-Spain. What can on­ly be de­scribed as an evening of cul­tur­al bril­liance was a fes­ti­val project pre­sen­ta­tion–Jour­ney–by Bach­e­lor of Arts stu­dent Akua Lei­th. Lei­th, who is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing his Pan Ma­jor in Mu­si­cal Arts, was giv­en as his fi­nal year project the task of ed­u­cat­ing and train­ing a steel­band made up on­ly of mem­bers over the age of 40.

As a re­quire­ment, the mem­bers were to have no pri­or mu­si­cal ex­pe­ri­ence or knowl­edge of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment. The pre­sen­ta­tion start­ed with the ma­ture band–High­Lights–show­ing off what its mu­si­cians learned, from warm-ups to tech­ni­cal ex­er­cis­es. The pro­gramme pro­ceed­ed with their be­ing put to the test when the au­di­ence was in­vit­ed to ask them ques­tions about the steel­pan, its his­to­ry, his­to­ri­ans and con­trib­u­tors.

Stu­dents sit with cer­tifi­cates in hand whilst watch­ing the rest of their class­mates col­lect­ing their cer­tifi­cates.

The band was di­vid­ed in­to two groups; each chose a leader, who would pro­vide an­swers on their be­half. The se­niors passed with fly­ing colours, as they cor­rect­ly an­swered every ques­tion. Af­ter­ward, High­Lights show­cased their teach­ers' suc­cess at train­ing them when they per­formed with pro­fes­sion­al ac­cu­ra­cy Twin­kle Twin­kle Lit­tle Star, Blue Danube and a Beethoven com­po­si­tion. But, the re­al high­lights of the evening were the tes­ti­mo­ni­als of the play­ers, who ex­pressed their grat­i­tude for the chance to be in­volved in such a project, giv­ing them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ful­fill as­pi­ra­tions which seemed un­at­tain­able in ear­li­er years.

High­Lights mem­bers, di­vid­ed in­to two teams, await ques­tions from the au­di­ence.

The High­Lights ag­gre­ga­tion con­sists of 21 mem­bers, main­ly women, who stat­ed that the project was a god­send, as it gave them the op­por­tu­ni­ty and con­fi­dence to pur­sue their dreams of play­ing pan. The women ex­plained that whilst grow­ing up it was taboo for them to even con­sid­er play­ing the steel pan. The evening end­ed with light re­fresh­ments and an au­di­ence view­ing of a pic­to­r­i­al of the progress and field trips the class par­tic­i­pat­ed in through its six-week du­ra­tion.