Gillian Moore

Twen­ty years af­ter form­ing the na­tion's first school's steel­band, the Di­a­mond Vale Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School Steel En­sem­ble took pa­trons on A Jour­ney in Steel at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, un­der the di­rec­tion of their con­duc­tor and arranger Yolande Joseph. They al­so re­leased a CD, When Dreams Come True. At the con­cert, on Tues­day, the young pan­nists showed poise and tal­ent and per­formed to a stan­dard that could ri­val many adult pan sides. The diminu­tive play­ers stood be­hind their glis­ten­ing pans, look­ing sharp in their ma­roon blaz­ers. They start­ed the show with an en­er­getic ren­di­tion of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nacht Musik, arranged by Chris Tan­ner. A more hushed Pa­nis An­geli­cus, arranged by Nervin Saun­ders, fol­lowed, af­ter which came Can Can, arranged by Dr Jean­nine Re­my.

Brisas del Zu­lia added latin flavour with some nifty per­cus­sion. The pieces were short, keep­ing the show mov­ing briskly and nev­er let­ting the au­di­ence get bored. En­sem­ble mem­bers showed their tal­ent is not lim­it­ed to play­ing pan: they came for­ward and sang I Am His Child. This was fol­lowed by a sweet so­lo ren­di­tion of Khacha­turi­an's Sabre Dance by Joshua Joseph. The William Tell Over­ture (adapt­ed Re­my) seemed slight­ly mud­dy in parts, but the bass pans made their pres­ence pleas­ant­ly felt. It came to­geth­er nice­ly in the end and was very well re­ceived. The pan­nists were joined on­stage by the school's award-win­ning choir, per­form­ing The Sound of Mu­sic, My Favourite Things and Climb Every Moun­tain. The choir then per­formed a drama­tised folk song, Old Woman, which brought the house down.

They closed the first half with Co­me­di­an's Gal­lop (arranged by Tim Pe­ter­ma), adding some fun­ny chore­og­ra­phy (by Akeisha By­ing-Danzell) as they played. The more eclec­tic sec­ond half opened with the young mu­si­cians look­ing more re­laxed in trop­i­cal shirts. They de­liv­ered a swing­ing ren­di­tion of Glenn Miller's In the Mood, arranged by Saun­ders-and even did the twist. The Bea­t­les' Yes­ter­day got a bit of a bossa treat­ment, fol­lowed by Mar­ley's Jam­min and Three Lit­tle Birds. Yolande Joseph stepped out from be­hind her mu­sic stand to con­duct Adesh Sama­roo's Ra­jin Jheem jheem Jhoom with her whole frame. Dur­ing the drum so­lo, the pan­nists threw down some In­di­an dance moves, and earn­ing lots of ap­plause at the end of the num­ber.

Kitch­en­er's Old La­dy Walk a Mile and a Half fea­tured so­los by Joshua Joseph ad Chez Gon­za­les.

For the rest of the show, they were joined by Ever­ald Wat­son (Red­man) on African drums, and the re­main­ing songs were all bridged by drum tran­si­tions. They played Ben­jai's Tri­ni, cap­tur­ing the ex­u­ber­ant spir­it of the so­ca hit; Palance by JW & Blaze (and yes, they palanced, too). The choir re­turned to per­form the South African hymn Siya­ham­ba, keep­ing time with sticks in their hands. The show re­al­ly had been a jour­ney, show­cas­ing a lev­el of so­phis­ti­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­ism that did their school proud.