Yvonne Webb

An eight-year-old girl yes­ter­day taught adults a great les­son at the fi­nals of the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Arts Fes­ti­val 2012, be­ing held at the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do. Stage fright got the bet­ter of Gabrielle Chaits­ingh as she was about to par­tic­i­pate in the vo­cal so­lo cat­e­go­ry, but on­ly mo­men­tar­i­ly, as she re­gained her com­po­sure and wowed the au­di­ence with her pow­er­ful per­for­mance.

The D'Abadie Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School stu­dent start­ed her per­for­mance timid­ly and was al­most in­audi­ble as judges looked up from their score sheet to see what was hap­pen­ing and with all eyes of the packed au­di­ence fo­cused on her, the flood­gates opened. As one of the San Fest of­fi­cials rushed to her side he was soon joined by her teacher and oth­ers who sur­round­ed her, dried her tears and en­cour­aged her to fin­ish.

Af­ter a few min­utes, the adults left her and Chaits­ingh again took cen­tre stage. She was a lit­tle hes­i­tant at first, but as the strains of a pow­er­ful gospel song, You Raised Me Up, start­ed she re­gained her com­po­sure and pro­duced a ren­di­tion which had the au­di­ence on their feet ap­plaud­ing. At the end of the piece, she stood qui­et­ly for a few sec­onds and then walked off­stage, un­aware of the teary eyes and pow­er­ful emo­tions she left be­hind in the au­di­ence.

"That was the gem of the per­for­mance, " one par­ent in the au­di­ence re­marked. "Well done, bra­vo," an­oth­er said. The mu­sic cat­e­go­ry saw choirs and in­di­vid­u­als per­form­ing in the clas­si­cal/re­li­gious cat­e­go­ry, na­tion­al/pa­tri­ot­ic, folk, vo­cal so­lo and ca­lyp­so.

Stu­dents of the Laven­tille Girls' Gov­ern­ment School, who were wait­ing their turn to per­form in the ca­lyp­so cat­e­go­ry, the fi­nal cat­e­go­ry in that seg­ment, all made a peace sign for the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, as a sym­bol of their great­est de­sire for their be­lea­guered com­mu­ni­ty.

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny's 42nd an­nu­al fes­ti­val which be­gan on Sep­tem­ber 25, in­volves thou­sands of stu­dents from both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools across T&T, par­tic­i­pat­ing in 86 dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories in the per­form­ing and non-per­form­ing arts. The fes­ti­val will come to an end on No­vem­ber 15.

All the win­ners will come to­geth­er for two com­mand per­for­mances to be held on No­vem­ber 20 and 21 at the Na­pari­ma Bowl, while high­lights of the per­for­mances are sched­uled for Queen's Hall, Port-of-Spain on No­vem­ber 26. The mu­sic fi­nals will con­tin­ue un­til Fri­day.