Mu­sic Mak­ers, a mu­sic school di­rect­ed by Mer­le Al­bi­no de Coteau, cel­e­brat­ed its an­nu­al an­niver­sary with an Achieve­ment Day ear­li­er this month at City Hall Au­di­to­ri­um, Knox Street, Port-of-Spain. The live­ly, en­ter­tain­ing pro­gramme in­clud­ed choral se­lec­tions, parang, recorder, pan en­sem­bles and dance chore­o­graphed by An­tho­ny John.

Mu­sic Mak­ers stu­dents re­ceived Lon­don cer­tifi­cates in The­o­ry of Mu­sic and Prac­ti­cal–Pi­ano and Recorder at the Lo­cal Steel­pan So­lo Ex­am­i­na­tions run by the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI).

Mer­le Al­bi­no de Coteau and Im­manuel Lash­ley helped ac­com­pa­ny stu­dents on key­board and gui­tar, to­geth­er with George Carter and Ju­nior How­ell. Claude Grif­fith played drums. Christo­pher "Tam­bu" Her­bert with his usu­al dy­namism had every­one singing along with him as he per­formed sev­er­al gospel se­lec­tions.

Ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty Vanes­sa Her­bert and for­mer King of Car­ni­val Tony Al­leng host­ed the event.

Each year Mu­sic Mak­ers ho­n­ours a mu­sic icon. This year's re­cip­i­ent was renowned pan­nist/arranger, vir­tu­oso Robert Greenidge, the for­mer Panora­ma arranger for Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra who is this year ar­rang­ing for MHTL. Like Mu­sic Mak­ers, Greenidge is a prod­uct of Laven­tille. He has helped bring in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion to the steel­pan as a so­lo in­stru­ment. A long stand­ing mem­ber of the world renowned Jim­my Buf­fet Band, he has done some film work and his record­ings are crit­i­cal­ly ac­claimed.

Spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests at the event in­clud­ed Pan Trin­ba­go sec­re­tary Richard Forteau; Pan­land di­rec­tor Michael Coop­er; Nervin Saun­ders of CAL In­vaders; San­dra Awa; Al­li­son Seep­aul; Jeanette John­son; Mon­i­ca Mor­ton He­witt; Lila Williams of Screen Stars; Leslyn Wat­son; Neila Todd; Va­lerie Dechinea-Hop­kins; Bar­bara Lowhar; Sher­iza Bhag­gan; Shel­ton Williams; Stan­ley West; and Bob­by Mo­hammed of Guin­ness Cav­a­liers who per­formed dur­ing the in­ter­mis­sion.

Al­so present was Gail Guy, chair of the Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee. Cindy Gill dec­o­rat­ed City Hall for the event.

Port-of-Spain's may­or Ray­mond Tim Kee and the staff at the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion were thanked for the use of the au­di­to­ri­um.