Pe­ter Ray Blood

If there is one lo­cal in­sti­tu­tion in which par­ents, fam­i­ly and adults sup­port the na­tion's youth it is the Bird­song Acad­e­my. Tes­ti­mo­ny of this was seen last Wednes­day night when Queen's Hall was over­packed, most­ly with proud par­ents and rel­a­tives of young grad­uands, at Bird­song's ninth an­nu­al Va­ca­tion Camp clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny, billed as Tran­si­tions.

Host­ed by Ny­ol Man­swell and Akeil Tay­lor, the pro­gramme be­gan prompt­ly at 6.30 pm, as was ad­ver­tised. The af­fa­ble Man­swell, a grad­u­ate of the pres­ti­gious Berklee Col­lege, proved to be the per­fect stitch­ing to hold to­geth­er 24 items, pre­sent­ed by the acad­e­my's ju­nior steel, gui­tar, voice and per­cus­sion en­sem­bles, its se­nior stu­dents and tu­tors.

A vi­brant ren­di­tion of the na­tion­al an­them by the Bird­song Acad­e­my, com­pris­ing pan, voic­es and con­ven­tion­al in­stru­ments, opened the show and set the tone for what en­sued-a pro­duc­tion which com­plete­ly over­whelmed and thrilled an ap­pre­cia­tive au­di­ence. Ac­com­pa­nied by pi­anist Ra­jesh Mo­hammed, the trio of Chelsea Guer­ra, Jas­mine Adams and Isoke Noel were the first per­form­ers, singing Hal­lelu­jah. They were fol­lowed by the Acad­e­my's ju­nior steel­band, play­ing the theme from the movie Bim.

The show's first half of­fered some tru­ly en­joy­able per­for­mances, in­clud­ing the per­cus­sion class's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Shosholoza, a pop­u­lar Zim­bab­wean com­po­si­tion; Love­ly Day by the Voice En­sem­ble; and, the Acad­e­my Steel's han­dling of the in­tri­cate Izo's Mood. Af­ter the in­ter­mis­sion, the Acad­e­my Brass re­sumed pro­ceed­ings with three num­bers. Out­stand­ing in this seg­ment was the trum­pet in­ter­ven­tion by or­ches­tra di­rec­tor Richard Quar­les for the group's play­ing of the im­mor­tal My Fun­ny Valen­tine.

The fol­low­ing seg­ment, pre­sent­ed by the Small En­sem­ble, was per­haps the pro­gramme's most pow­er­ful chap­ter, un­der the di­rec­tion of ac­claimed key­boardist Raf Robert­son. Show­ing a pen­chant for the mu­sic of the late Lord Kitch­en­er, the en­sem­ble en­ticed thun­der­ous ap­plause by per­form­ing four of the Grand Mas­ter's vin­tage hits: Panora­ma Night, Pan in Har­mo­ny, Margie and Pan in A Mi­nor. Its ex­e­cu­tion of Pan in Har­mo­ny was a joy to ex­pe­ri­ence as the in­stru­ments were in­fused with the beau­ti­ful voic­es of four of the acad­e­my's vo­cal­ists, em­bell­ish­ing the in­ter­pre­ta­tion by em­pha­sis­ing the song's catchy re­frain. The quar­tet was Jas­mine Adams, Raesh­ma Kissoon, Chelsea Guer­ra and Ani­ka Ed­wards.

An­oth­er piece of beau­ty was One for Two, in which Berklee Col­lege grad­u­ate and tu­tor Der­ri­anne Dyett was fea­tured on tenor pan. The wit­ty and mul­ti-tal­ent­ed Man­swell al­so per­formed with Robert­son and the Small En­sem­ble, rais­ing pores through the hall with a per­fect cov­er of Bon­nie Raitt's clas­sic I Can't Make You Love Me. Man­swell's ren­di­tion was not on­ly punc­tu­at­ed by sighs, but al­so by spon­ta­neous ap­plause.

Bring­ing the cur­tain down on an ex­cep­tion­al­ly en­thralling and en­joy­able night of mu­sic was the Acad­e­my Or­ches­tra, per­form­ing Pi­rates of the Caribbean, Mam­bo No 8 and Kitch­en­er's No­ra No­ra and Trou­ble in Ari­ma. The Bird­song Acad­e­my must be ap­plaud­ed for the pos­i­tive work it has been do­ing with the na­tion's youth. Man­swell men­tioned that the pro­gramme is to be adopt­ed by oth­er steel­bands na­tion­wide. "This pro­gramme is for the de­vel­op­ment of young peo­ple, not just in mu­sic, but their de­vel­op­ment in life," Man­swell said.