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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Francois Girls coming again for Junior Panorama

by

20130128

Come Feb­ru­ary 3, the St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege Steel En­sem­ble will seek a hat-trick in the Ju­nior Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. The girls have worked long and hard, some of them prac­tis­ing since last year, with an eye to tak­ing their third con­sec­u­tive ti­tle as U21 sec­ondary schools champs in the com­pe­ti­tion.

Their arranger and band­leader, Pe­ter Ror­ry Ale­ong, has been part coach and part li­on tamer, de­vot­ing many hours to teach­ing them his com­pli­cat­ed arrange­ment of Tell Dem, a Black Stal­in and Steve Sealy song com­posed by Bri­an "Bean" Grif­fith.

As a par­ent I've ad­mired his mu­si­cal skills–his arrange­ment of the sweet melody has been aug­ment­ed with jazzy riffs that have the young pan­nists' hands fly­ing over the steel. I've al­so ad­mired his pa­tience and de­ter­mi­na­tion in the face of the in­evitable high spir­its of a few dozen teenaged girls who some­times seem to be more in­ter­est­ed in gig­gling than play­ing pan.

His en­thu­si­asm is con­ta­gious, though, and at the com­ple­tion of each day's prac­tice, the girls cheer at the end of the run-through of the tune. They've come a long way in the weeks since prac­tice be­gan in earnest at the PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars pa­n­yard in Wood­brook and are now re­fin­ing and pol­ish­ing their per­for­mance.

Pan it­self has come a long way since it be­gan. I was telling the La­dy, my 12-year-old daugh­ter, about the his­to­ry of the steel­band move­ment and the vi­o­lent clash­es that char­ac­terised the ear­ly days of pan, such as the In­vaders/Tokyo bat­tle Blakie sings about in his clas­sic Steel­band Clash. The ri­val­ry is mu­si­cal to­day, as Stal­in and Sealy sing in Tell Dem: "Af­ter all is said and done/ it boils down to fun/ for all of us./ It ent no war we fight­ing/...is on­ly just a mu­si­cal war."

St Fran­cois has a long and sto­ried tra­di­tion in pan. It was one of the ear­li­est all-girl bands, start­ed in 1974, ac­cord­ing to the rich­ly in­for­ma­tive book by for­mer St Fran­cois mu­sic teacher, Lau­ra Franklin, Mu­sic on the Hill.

The band was start­ed as a project in the Duke of Ed­in­burgh Award Scheme. With the as­sis­tance of the T&TEC Pow­er Stars, par­tic­u­lar­ly Mc­Don­ald Red­head and Samule Mc­Connie, the girls prac­tised on Thurs­days from 4.30 - 6 pm with four girls to one pan un­til they ac­quired more in­stru­ments. With­in a few years, they had won sec­ond place in the Ju­nior Car­ni­val Steel­band Com­pe­ti­tion, and took first place in 1980.

Pan arranger Michelle Hug­gins-Watts got her start at St Fran­cois and said in Mu­sic on the Hill, "My jour­ney with the St Fran­cois Girls' Steel Or­ches­tra pro­vid­ed me with ex­pe­ri­ences that were both so­cial­ly and emo­tion­al­ly ed­i­fy­ing, while be­ing mu­si­cal­ly chal­leng­ing and em­pow­er­ing.

"My ex­pe­ri­ences served as a launch­ing pad to my mu­sic ca­reer and dur­ing times of re­flec­tions I ask my­self, 'Where would you have been if you had not joined the steel or­ches­tra in school?'" Hug­gins-Watts went on to arrange the 2011 Na­tion­al Panora­ma win­ning tune for big band Val­ley Harps.

Miss Thing has been play­ing pan since she was a wee girl and loves the in­stru­ment. This is her first time play­ing in a se­ri­ous band, how­ev­er, hav­ing had in­di­vid­ual tu­tors for many years and on­ly once tak­ing part in the an­nu­al Re­pub­lic Bank Pan Mi­nors pro­gramme, which in­cludes an en­sem­ble per­for­mance.

She comes home every evening from Sil­ver Stars ex­haust­ed, with sore feet and arms, but with a face shin­ing with ex­cite­ment. She lives for this; I can see it. I am so proud of her com­mit­ment to the en­sem­ble and hope they will win.

The oth­er girls, their par­ents, mu­sic teacher Miss Clarke, the school com­mit­tee ded­i­cat­ed to the Panora­ma ef­fort, and the school's prin­ci­pal and vice prin­ci­pal have all been putting in equal­ly ster­ling ef­forts, this is tru­ly a team en­ter­prise, and should they take the hat-trick, it would be a vic­to­ry for all of us, not just the play­ers and the tire­less arranger.

Ror­ry Ale­ong said to me last year in an un­pub­lished in­ter­view, "Mu­sic is a tool to be used for the de­vel­op­ment of the holis­tic child. It pos­sess­es the abil­i­ty to calm nerves, re­lieve stress, nur­ture self-es­teem, mo­ti­vate and, most of all, I be­lieve, is the so­lu­tion to a lot of the prob­lems teenagers face in the world. I've seen it."

Ale­ong has sure­ly cho­sen the most ap­pro­pri­ate song for the band this year. As Stal­in sings in Tell Dem: "We com­ing to light up the Sa­van­nah/...You know they can't dis­cour­age we/ Be­cause we full of en­er­gy/...You know they just can't keep we away/ So we com­ing again."


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