NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

weet steel­pan mu­sic filled the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) on Sun­day evening as the Caribbean Mu­sic Awards cel­e­brat­ed T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment and icons of the fra­ter­ni­ty.

The Stars and Steel con­cert and award show con­clud­ed the awards’ three-day-long cel­e­bra­tions and re­gion­al de­but.

The MITTCO En­sem­ble treat­ed at­ten­dees to med­leys span­ning mul­ti­ple gen­res, in­clud­ing so­ca, reg­gae, dance­hall, pop, soul and more. Led by artis­tic di­rec­tor and con­duc­tor Akua Lei­th, the per­for­mances were arranged by Seion Gomez, Am­rit Sama­roo, Dr Jean­nine Re­my and the MITTCO En­sem­ble Mu­sic Team.

Singers Jah Ma­son, An­gela Hunte, Pa­tra, Sher­win Gard­ner, Juss Lizz and Quin­ton Neck­les took cen­tre stage, woo­ing the crowd with some pop­u­lar tunes.

When she en­tered the stage, an emo­tion­al Hunte re­called when she wrote the hook for Jay-Z and Ali­cia Keys’ Gram­my Award-win­ning song Em­pire State of Mind (New York). She urged peo­ple to fol­low their dreams.

“I grew up in Barataria, I grew up with my grand­par­ents… But there were many days in that back­yard on Sixth Street that I dreamt of singing with a pan or­ches­tra,” she said. “And al­though win­ning the Gram­mys and all those ac­co­lades are great, this mo­ment is in­cred­i­ble.”

The so­ca seg­ment brought many to their feet, wav­ing rags, flags and jump­ing to tunes like Jam­town by Coutain, Too Own Way by Voice, Co­coa Tea by Kes and sev­er­al oth­ers.

Steel­pan leg­ends Len “Boogsie” Sharpe and Bertram “Birch” Kel­man, as well as Pan Trin­ba­go, re­ceived awards for their con­tri­bu­tion to the cul­ture over the years. Sharpe was giv­en the Pan Mae­stro Icon award, Kel­man got the Gold­en Ear Icon award, and Pan Trin­ba­go, the Lega­cy Pil­lar of Pan award.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore was elat­ed that such an event was able to be held. “I am lost for words,” she told Guardian Me­dia. “It’s a mo­ment that we are so proud (of) to be stand­ing on the shoul­ders of the an­ces­tors. To re­ceive this on be­half of every steel­band leader, every steel­pan play­er, every tuner, every arranger–the en­tire ecosys­tem–I thank you so much.”

On his award, Kel­man said he has worked very hard and it felt good to be recog­nised for it. “I feel great. I worked some 45 to 50 years… I want to thank T&T and the pan fra­ter­ni­ty.”

For Boogsie, while not­ing he’s not usu­al­ly “much of a talk­er,” he felt it was nec­es­sary to show grat­i­tude to all who made this hap­pen. He told Guardian Me­dia he was “thank­ful and grate­ful for the work (I’ve) done and a lot of peo­ple have (have) done.”

As the MITTCO En­sem­ble fi­nal­ly per­formed their last song of the night – or so they thought – the crowd be­gan chant­i­ng and cheer­ing for an En­core, and they got ex­act­ly that.

The con­duc­tor re­turned to lead the band to per­form Machel Mon­tano’s Road-March-win­ning tune En­core to end the night – for re­al this time.

The Caribbean Mu­sic Awards’ ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee thanked all who sup­port­ed this year’s cel­e­bra­tions.