More than 300 stu­dents and young mu­si­cians at­tend­ed the first two De­vel­op­men­tal Mu­sic Work­shops, spon­sored for the ninth con­sec­u­tive year by First Cit­i­zens.Jour­ney­ing from as far west as Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral and Maple Leaf In­ter­na­tion­al, to Bish­op Anstey/Trin­i­ty Col­lege and Bon Air Sec­ondary in the east, stu­dents con­verged on the Port-of-Spain Li­ons Cul­tur­al Cen­tre and the Bon Air West Com­mu­ni­ty Fa­cil­i­ty on Oc­to­ber 24 and 25, re­spec­tive­ly.

They were di­vid­ed in­to groups to fa­cil­i­tate max­i­mum hands-on in­ter­ac­tion with the team of high­ly ex­pe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als.Head­ed by Cana­di­an jazz fu­sion pi­anist/com­pos­er/arranger, Je­re­my Led­bet­ter, and award win­ning trum­peter, Cuban born Alex­is Ramirez Baro, the six mem­ber team of fa­cil­i­ta­tors in­cludes re­spect­ed lo­cal mu­si­cians Dougie Re­don, Clif­ford Charles, Lea­son Ja­cob and Natasha Joseph. The team pro­vid­ed valu­able in­sights to the as­pir­ing pan­nists, drum­mers, horns play­ers, bassists and gui­tarists.

Stu­dio 21 pro­duc­er, Kei­th­son Jon Cruick­shank, chipped in with a short im­promp­tu ses­sion, shar­ing his ex­pe­ri­ence with an en­thu­si­as­tic group of singers who were present at the Port-of-Spain ses­sion.Each work­shop closed with jam ses­sions fea­tur­ing the more pro­fi­cient young­sters and the sex­tet of fa­cil­i­ta­tors.The First Cit­i­zens De­vel­op­men­tal Mu­sic Work­shop Se­ries tar­gets young mu­si­cians from across the coun­try, and is a main fea­ture of the an­nu­al T&T Steel­pan and Jazz Fes­ti­val pro­duced by The QRC Foun­da­tion.The se­ries wrapped up with ses­sions at San Fer­nan­do on Oc­to­ber 27 and San­gre Grande on Oc­to­ber 28.