David Cuffy

God­win Bowen's 1993 com­po­si­tion Rais­ing Dust opened yes­ter­day's se­mi-fi­nal of the 2016 Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain.

Un­der a live­ly arrange­ment by Kion Robin­son, the song was played at 9.30 am by La Hor­quet­ta Pan Groove Steel Or­ches­tra ap­pear­ing in po­si­tion one in the small con­ven­tion­al bands cat­e­go­ry in which 20 bands utilised five hours to show­case their wares be­fore an ad­ju­di­ca­tion pan­el com­pris­ing Dami­an Phillip, Corinne Soo Ping Chow, Richard Pierre, Ezra Joseph, Marce­line Pe­ters, and Joslynne Sealey.

Among the com­peti­tors were six bands from the sis­ter isle To­ba­go (Steel Sen­sa­tion, To­ba­go Pan-Thers, Up­town Fas­ci­na­tors, C&B Crown Cor­daans, Our Boys, and T&TEC New East Side Sym­pho­ny).

The mu­sic played by the bands was a mix of past and present com­po­si­tions from an as­sort­ment of com­posers, in­clu­sive of the late Kitch­en­er (Ald­wyn Roberts), Spar­row (Dr Slinger Fran­cis­co), Chris "Tam­bu" Her­bert, Crazy (Ed­win Ay­oung), Bal­ly (Er­rol Bal­lan­tyne), Su­perBlue (Austin Lyons), The Orig­i­nal De Fos­to Him­self (Win­ston Scar­bor­ough), Mer­chant (Den­nis Franklyn Williams), Jayson (John Perez), Machel Mon­tano, David Rud­der, Vanes­sa Headley, Ja­son Bish­op, and Genelle Bharat.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, on­ly three songs com­posed in 2016 were on of­fer–De Fos­to's D Great­est In­ven­tion, played by Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny; Vanes­sa Headley's Young and Free, played by Gold­en Hands; and Genelle Bharat's Pan Jumbie, played by Laven­tille Ser­e­naders. The oth­ers spanned dates be­tween Spar­row's Doh Back Back (1984) and Ja­son Bish­op's My House (2015).

Es­tab­lished arrangers on show in­clud­ed Ter­rence "BJ" Mar­celle, Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore, Yohan Pop­well, Khari Co­dring­ton, Ard­din Her­bert, Cur­tis Ed­wards, and Mikhail Sal­cedo.

Lead­ing or­ches­tra from the pre­lim­i­nary round Tor­na­does of Point Fortin ap­peared in po­si­tion five to de­liv­er a Sher­von Ed­wards' arrange­ment of Jayson's Mash It Up from 1989. Sec­ond place qual­i­fi­er Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny played in fourth po­si­tion do­ing De Fos­to's D Great­est In­ven­tion, arranged by BJ Mar­celle, while third place qual­i­fi­er Five Rivers Mod­ern Sym­pho­ny show­cased Mer­chant's Pan In Dan­ger, arranged by Er­win Louis and Christo­pher Cow­ard, in po­si­tion sev­en.

Crescen­do Mu­si­cal from Er­i­ca Street, Laven­tille brought the cat­e­go­ry to a close at 2.30 pm with Tam­bu's 1989 Road March win­ner Free Up.

Ten bands will be se­lect­ed to ad­vance to the fi­nals sched­uled for Thurs­day, at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do where they will com­pete for the $400,000 first prize.Medi­um and large bands fol­lowed the small bands cat­e­go­ry.