DAVID CUFFY

An es­ti­mat­ed $69 mil­lion will be in­vest­ed in the cre­ative and cul­tur­al in­dus­tries be­tween 2013 and 2015, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas. He made the an­nounce­ment at the prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny for win­ners of the Na­tion­al Song Com­pe­ti­tion, 50th An­niver­sary In­de­pen­dence Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion, and Lord Bryn­ner In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion, held at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, on Thurs­day evening.

"Mu­sic and en­ter­tain­ment, the arts, fash­ion and film all rep­re­sent crit­i­cal pub­lic pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives de­signed to trig­ger job cre­ation and na­tion­al wealth," he said.

"This in­vest­ment, there­fore, au­gurs well for our artists and ar­ti­sans as we con­tin­ue to cre­ate sus­tain­able liveli­hoods with­in the arts and cul­ture. From where I sit, ladies and gen­tle­men, the fu­ture looks very promis­ing, as we work to­wards di­ver­si­fy­ing our econ­o­my by ex­pand­ing and de­vel­op­ing the in­fra­struc­ture that will fos­ter thriv­ing cre­ative and cul­tur­al in­dus­tries."

A small au­di­ence of in­vit­ed guests was present at the venue to wit­ness per­for­mances by win­ners and run­ners-up of the three com­pe­ti­tions, ac­com­pa­nied by the New Wave Con­cert Band un­der the mu­si­cal di­rec­tion of Auburn Wilt­shire.

Na­tion­al Song Com­pe­ti­tion awardees in­clud­ed first-place win­ner Er­phaan Alves with his com­po­si­tion As We Rise, sec­ond-place Ali­cia Jag­gasar do­ing Di­a­monds In The Sun, and third-place Mar­sha Charles with the Shar­lan Bai­ley-com­posed Trin­ba­go Live On. Al­so per­form­ing were fourth- to sixth-place win­ners Daria Gon­za­les-Arise, com­posed by Car­la Noel-Mendez; Aaron St Louis-Tri­ni; and Hol­lis Wright-Song Of Hope.

Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Rik­ki Jai could not com­plete his pre­sen­ta­tion of Moth­er Trin­ba­go as he had the flu. First run­ner-up Sal­ly Sagram per­formed Hap­py In­de­pen­dence, and sec­ond run­ner-up Rooplal Gird­har­rie pre­sent­ed Land Of Par­adise.

First-, sec­ond- and third-place win­ners in the Ca­lyp­so Monarch con­test al­so of­fered pre­sen­ta­tions of their se­lec­tions.

Chucky (Rod­er­ick Gor­don)-Bear With Me; Michelle Hen­ry-Our Na­tion­al Watch­words; and Karen Ec­cles-Give, I Will Rec­i­p­ro­cate.

All prizes were pre­sent­ed by Dou­glas, who in his ad­dress, had thrown out a warn­ing to stake­hold­ers in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try. "Lit­tle by lit­tle, the prin­ci­pals and key play­ers with­in cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions of every kind must di­vest them­selves of the need to al­ways seek state sub­ven­tions for projects and ini­tia­tives," he said.

"Iron­i­cal­ly, in a num­ber of cas­es, the ini­tia­tives host­ed by these or­gan­i­sa­tions very of­ten gen­er­ate sub­stan­tial rev­enue from com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty. Where, then, are the strate­gies for re-in­vest­ment for fu­ture growth?"

He then posed the chal­lenge: "How can you, as in­di­vid­u­als and as or­gan­i­sa­tions, lever­age your in­no­v­a­tive­ness in a man­ner that works in your best in­ter­est and in the in­ter­est of the pub­lic whom you serve?" Al­so de­liv­er­ing re­marks were George Singh, CEO of Southex Pro­mo­tions; and Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba (Broth­er Re­sis­tance), pres­i­dent of Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion. Ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty Sharon Pitt per­formed MC du­ties.