Shel­don Os­borne

Cli­co Sforza­ta Steel Or­ches­tra staged a Pan Jam­boree on June 13 at the band's Pan The­atre on Evans Street, Curepe. The evening was a de­light to pan mu­sic en­thu­si­asts who pre­fer to sam­ple the mu­sic of sev­er­al bands at a time, as the four-hour long pro­gramme fea­tured PCS Sil­ver Stars, Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus, BP Rene­gades and Cou­va Joy­lan­ders. Pa­trons al­so en­joyed a well-stocked bar and de­li­cious corn soup, cour­tesy band trea­sur­er Joslyn Ear­le. How­ev­er, some meat-lov­ing pa­trons sug­gest­ed that they should have been catered to as well, and in re­sponse, Ear­le said she would con­sid­er ex­pand­ing the menu for the next jam­boree to be held lat­er this year.

Sforza­ta cap­tain Trevor Reid told T&T Guardian that the pan jam­borees are among sev­er­al events host­ed by the band an­nu­al­ly: "We al­ways try to keep the yard ac­tive with cul­tur­al events for the ben­e­fit of the com­mu­ni­ty's youth," Reid said. Reid added: "We have the two jam­borees fea­tur­ing bands from all over the coun­try, and we al­so host sev­er­al fundrais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties to fund the con­tin­u­ing de­vel­op­ment of the yard as a cen­tre where young peo­ple can en­gage in safe and con­struc­tive ac­tiv­i­ty." Sforza­ta's pa­n­yard fa­cil­i­ties in­clude a bar, a large, tiled mul­ti-pur­pose build­ing, and clean, well-built re­strooms. The band is al­so in the process of build­ing a stage area to al­low the host­ing of a wider va­ri­ety of cul­tur­al events.

Cli­co Sforza­ta cap­tain Trevor Reid.

The pres­ence of dozens of young peo­ple at the jam­boree was proof of the band's com­mit­ment to the de­vel­op­ment of youth in the Curepe-St Joseph area and be­yond. Reid said that dis­ci­pline is a vi­tal el­e­ment at Cli­co Sforza­ta Steel Or­ches­tra's pa­n­yard, and this is what he at­trib­uted to the band's suc­cess in the area of youth de­vel­op­ment. Con­trary to what might be ex­pect­ed, the many young peo­ple in­volved in the band wel­come the high lev­el of dis­ci­pline at the yard, and Reid seemed to be quite pop­u­lar among the many teen mem­bers of the band de­spite his strict dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an stance. Cli­co Sforza­ta Steel Or­ches­tra's suc­cess with the band's large youth el­e­ment is an ex­am­ple of the role pa­n­yards can play in pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple to make pos­i­tive choic­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the trou­bled com­mu­ni­ties of the East-West Cor­ri­dor. Orig­i­nal­ly ad­ver­tised for the evening of pan, Wit­co Des­per­a­does, Phase II Pan Groove, and Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz were no-shows.