The Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­gent of the Schol­ar­ship Com­pe­ti­tion of Tal­ent­ed Teenagers (SCOTT) has made the na­tion proud at the World Cham­pi­onships of Per­form­ing Arts 2011. The team re­turned home from Hol­ly­wood with much pride and en­thu­si­asm.

The beam­ing team, which in­clud­ed Ex­ocubs Steel Or­ches­tra, at­tend­ed the 15th an­nu­al WCO­PA bring­ing home sev­en gold, 12 sil­ver and four bronze medals. In ad­di­tion T&T re­ceived two schol­ar­ships award­ed to Joseph Lewis, who al­so won one gold and five sil­ver medals, and Mithoon Hard­eo to at­tend the Millineum School of Dance.

At the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny and pa­rade of na­tions T&T was award­ed a plaque for Best Na­tion­al Cos­tume, a com­bi­na­tion of cos­tumes from 2011 bands Tri­ni Rev­ellers and Tribe. Ex­ocubs played at the pro­ceed­ings. Our twin is­land re­pub­lic was well rep­re­sent­ed on the west coast with pageantry colour and our na­tion­al in­stru­ment. Oth­er coun­tries re­ceiv­ing plaques were Guatemala and Rus­sia.

The ex­cite­ment with all coun­tries af­ter the kick off cer­e­mo­ny be­gan ear­ly the next morn­ing with pre­lim­i­nar­ies of tal­ent com­pris­ing of vo­cals, ac­tors, in­stru­men­tal­ists, dancers and mod­els. All par­tic­i­pants did T&T proud said Princes Lee Kei­th who co-or­di­nat­ed the team with as­sis­tance from In­ez Sinanan.

High­lights were placed on Mari­ka Seenath, a 15-year-old opera singer from Ch­agua­nas, who sang her way through the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, semi­fi­nals and was giv­en the nod by the judges as a fi­nal­ist. She per­formed "O Mio Bab­bi­no Caro," an ital­ian song. Seenath earned one gold and two sil­ver medals.

Ion­aire Joseph, al­so 15, a pan­nist from Mara­bel­la earned his way to the fi­nals play­ing Kitch­en­er's Pan in A Mi­nor, bring­ing home one gold and two sil­ver medals. Ex­cobus per­formed in two cat­e­gories-con­tem­po­rary and clas­si­cal- and earned two gold medals, play­ing its and clas­si­cal ren­di­tion for the fi­nals and cap­tur­ing an­oth­er gold medal.

Schol­ar­ship Com­pe­ti­tion of Tal­ent­ed Teenagers (SCOTT) is an an­nu­al event held to de­vel­op artis­tic skills of tal­ent­ed teenagers be­tween the ages of 14-18.The event is held un­der the pa­tron­age of Pres­i­dent Pro­fes­sor George Maxwell Richards and Dr Jean Ramjohn-Richards.

Any­one in­ter­est­ed to au­di­tion for WCO­PA (ages 10-35), sched­uled for Ju­ly 3-15, 2012, con­tact the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Princes Lee Kei­th at 757-8692 or 662-6196.