Pe­ter Ray Blood

Bom­bard­ed by a tor­rent of tox­ic and neg­a­tive news in me­dia about the cur­rent state and fu­ture of our na­tion, we cit­i­zens need to take some time out, take a deep breath and recog­nise and ap­plaud the pos­i­tives so many of our na­tion's youth have been achiev­ing.

Young na­tion­als con­tin­ue to achieve great things on the glob­al stage; achieve­ments which go un­no­ticed by most and in which we must be very proud and ap­plaud.

The young mu­si­cians of Ex­ocubs Steel Or­ches­tra (youth arm of Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus) re­cent­ly re­turned home af­ter win­ning stand­ing ova­tions and crit­i­cal ac­claim for their per­for­mances in Ar­genti­na.

Their coun­ter­parts of Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra of Pe­tit Val­ley are cur­rent­ly wind­ing down a con­cert tour of France.

The St Mar­garet's Youth Steel Or­ches­tra al­so con­tin­ues to fly the cul­tur­al flag of T&T very high as they show us and the world the great in­ven­tion that is the steel­pan. They will be stag­ing their Ninth An­nu­al Youth Steel­band Ex­trav­a­gan­za to­mor­row at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, start­ing at 2 pm.

The or­ches­tra's Mu­si­cal/Events co-or­di­na­tor, Rose­marie Abra­ham, said this week: "In our con­tin­uedquest to de­vel­op our youths holis­ti­cal­ly through the medi­um of the steel­pan, we of the St Mar­garet's Youth Steel Or­ches­tra have em­barked on a pan pro­gramme which has been quite suc­cess­ful.

"In ad­di­tion to our or­ches­tra, which re­cent­ly per­formed suc­cess­ful­ly at Carnegie Hall and Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios, Or­lan­do, there will al­so be per­for­mances by BP Rene­gades Youth Steel Or­ches­tra (non-school Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on); Suc­cess Stars Pan Sounds; MHTL Star­lift Ju­niors and Massy Trinidad All Stars Youth Steel Or­ches­tra."

Star­lift and Trinidad All Stars Youth Steel Or­ches­tras are the two new­com­ers in the line-up this year.

Fresh from a stand­ing ova­tion at Carnegie Hall in Man­hat­tan in June 2015 and from tremen­dous suc­cess at the Or­lan­do Spring Mu­sic Fes­ti­val at Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios in April 2016, these tal­ent­ed young mu­si­cians will again show­case their pan wiz­ardry at the Ex­trav­a­gan­za.

The St Mar­garet's Youth Steel­band Ex­trav­a­gan­za of­fers youth steel or­ches­tras who do well in the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion the op­por­tu­ni­ty to per­form at a stan­dard of ex­cel­lence in a non-com­pet­i­tive at­mos­phere.

This helps to fos­ter ca­ma­raderie among the play­ers of the var­i­ous steel­bands, a ca­ma­raderie which it's hoped will con­tin­ue to ex­ist even when they are adult play­ers in com­pet­ing steel or­ches­tras.

Per­form­ing will be the var­i­ous age-group en­sem­bles of the St Mar­garet's Boys AC Pri­ma­ry School. The school has a very dy­nam­ic steel­pan pro­gramme which was start­ed in 2002 by Abra­ham and which con­tin­ues to­day with strong sup­port from the prin­ci­pal Col­lette Perez.

The school placed sec­ond in the Pri­ma­ry School Cat­e­go­ry of the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma 2016 and emerged win­ners in the El­e­men­tary Schools cat­e­go­ry at the Or­lan­do Spring Mu­sic Fes­ti­val.

These skilled young mu­si­cians do not just play the steel­pan, they de­liv­er a wide reper­toire of mu­sic and ex­cit­ing, ex­hil­a­rat­ing per­for­mances full of ap­pro­pri­ate, dy­nam­ic and well-re­hearsed chore­og­ra­phy.

By at­tend­ing the Ex­trav­a­gan­za, not on­ly will you en­joy mes­meris­ing mu­sic by these young, tal­ent­ed steel­pan play­ers, you will al­so be sup­port­ing this fund-rais­er to as­sist St Mar­garet's Youth Steel Or­ches­tra to ac­cept their in­vi­ta­tions to Los An­ge­les, USA and Cal­gary, Cana­da in 2017.

Not to be out­done, the young women of Bish­op Anstey High School again achieved ex­cel­lence when the school's choir and steel­band were again vic­to­ri­ous in the just con­clud­ed Llan­gollen Mu­sic Fes­ti­val in Wales, open to school choirs and or­ches­tras from across the globe.