A se­lect group of 12 young mu­si­cians have com­plet­ed an in­ten­sive two-week work­shop aimed at groom­ing them to be­come fu­ture Panora­ma arrangers. Or­gan­ised by the Pan in Schools Co­or­di­nat­ing Coun­cil (PSCC) and ful­ly spon­sored by en­er­gy com­pa­ny BP Trinidad and To­ba­go (bpTT), the an­nu­al work­shop in­volved mu­sic teach­ers and stu­dents with am­bi­tions to arrange tunes for the ac­claimed Panora­ma steel­band com­pe­ti­tion. Par­tic­i­pants were drawn from sec­ondary school mu­sic teach­ers and stu­dents equipped with Grade 2 The­o­ry of Mu­sic qual­i­fi­ca­tion and, of course, pan-play­ing skills. The Panora­ma ar­rang­ing ses­sion took place from Ju­ly 9 to 27. It was one of four hands-on mu­sic work­shops con­duct­ed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly by the PSCC, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with bpTT dur­ing Ju­ly in T&T. At the dai­ly ses­sions at the St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary School, the young mu­si­cians dis­played keen in­ter­est as fa­cil­i­ta­tor Michelle Hug­gins-Watts, her­self a Panora­ma cham­pi­onship win­ning arranger, em­pha­sised the fun­da­men­tals of the course.

"We have a small but very vi­brant and will­ing class of stu­dents. Some have done arrange­ments be­fore while oth­ers are new to it. We are see­ing some great tal­ent and this au­gurs well for the fu­ture cadre of pan arrangers," said Hug­gins-Watts, a qual­i­fied mu­sic teacher. Akeel Hen­ry, a Ju­nior Panora­ma arranger, who han­dled du­ties as as­sis­tant fa­cil­i­ta­tor, said he was proud to be part of a project which should guar­an­tee the fu­ture of Panora­ma ar­rang­ing. This is the eighth year that bpTT has part­nered with the PSCC in nur­tur­ing the mu­si­cal tal­ents of the young peo­ple of T&T. The com­pa­ny has es­tab­lished a rich tra­di­tion of in­volve­ment in the steel­band move­ment, dat­ing back to the 70s with mul­ti­ple Panora­ma cham­pi­ons, BP Rene­gades. Ron­da Fran­cis, bpTT's Cor­po­rate Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty Man­ag­er, said the com­pa­ny has in­vest­ed heav­i­ly in de­vel­op­ing the po­ten­tial of the young peo­ple of T&T, not­ing that the con­tin­u­ing part­ner­ship with the PSCC rep­re­sents a valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the mu­si­cal de­vel­op­ment of the par­tic­i­pants. At the end of the work­shop, par­tic­i­pants were re­quired to arrange a ca­lyp­so us­ing the mu­si­cal in­for­ma­tion, knowl­edge and skills, learnt dur­ing the ses­sions.