At just13 years of age, Fer­di­nand "Fer­die" Smith is no stranger to the mu­sic busi­ness and has been per­form­ing and win­ning ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions since he was six years old.Fer­die, as he likes to be called, at­tends the SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege in San­gre Grande.On Wednes­day, he won first place in the Na­tion­al Youth Ac­tion Com­mit­tee's Ca­lyp­so Jew­els com­pe­ti­tion with his song Cher­ish Free­dom.Fer­die is no stranger to com­pe­ti­tions as he cap­tured the Ca­lyp­so Pi­o­neers ti­tle in 2005 and won Ca­lyp­so Jew­els in 2009 and placed sec­ond in the same com­pe­ti­tion in 2010.

On Wednes­day, too, Aaron Dun­can and Timel Ri­vas were de­clared joint win­ners of this year's Ca­lyp­so Pi­o­neers com­pe­ti­tion.Fer­die won the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools' So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion in 2008 and is the cur­rent hold­er of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so ti­tle.His Car­ni­val sched­ule is full as he plans to en­ter oth­er com­pe­ti­tions as well as de­fend his Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so ti­tles in Man­zanil­la, Va­len­cia and Grand Riv­iere.Fer­die, who spoke at the of­fices of the T&T Guardian, straight af­ter a com­pe­ti­tion yes­ter­day morn­ing, ad­mit­ted that he was nev­er hap­py when he did not place in a com­pe­ti­tion, es­pe­cial­ly if he felt that his per­for­mance was well done.

He was among the par­tic­i­pants at yes­ter­day's San Juan Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Com­pe­ti­tion.His moth­er Don­na St Louis de­scribed him as a per­fec­tion­ist on and off the stage. "Every sin­gle de­tail has to be just right, whether it's a class project or a ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion," she said.St Louis smiled as she de­scribed her son as bril­liant, say­ing that he had grad­u­at­ed at the top of his class in pri­ma­ry school but even when he did well, she al­ways pushed him to do bet­ter.She ex­pressed her ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the sup­port shown to her by SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege.

She said peo­ple were al­ways cu­ri­ous be­cause he sang Ca­lyp­so and at­tend­ed a Hin­du school, but she had been hap­py with the school's pro­gramme."Just this morn­ing, Fer­die's mu­sic teacher called to con­grat­u­late him, but al­so to re­mind me that even though he is per­form­ing a lot for the Car­ni­val sea­son, he needs to try to at­tend school as much as pos­si­ble," she said.On his win in Wednes­day's com­pe­ti­tion, Fer­die said he felt anx­ious af­ter his per­for­mance but was still pos­i­tive.

He smiled as he re­called his ex­cite­ment for win­ning and not­ed that when his friend Aaron Dun­can won the Ca­lyp­so Pi­o­neers com­pe­ti­tion, he was not sur­prised.His moth­er in­ter­ject­ed that Fer­die had an in­stinct when it came to com­pe­ti­tion."He usu­al­ly al­ways know who is go­ing to place in the top three," she said.Fer­die will be com­pet­ing in the Tu­co Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch semi­fi­nals to­day and will sing back-up for his younger sis­ter Meli­na Smith in the Schools' Ju­nior So­ca Monarch on Fri­day.