Pe­ter Ray Blood

Last Sat­ur­day, Pan Trin­ba­go host­ed its Di­a­mond Ju­bilee Awards Cer­e­mo­ny at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain. The event was at­tend­ed by a num­ber of dig­ni­taries, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston Pe­ters and for­mer Cul­ture Min­is­ter Joan Yuille-Williams, her­self an awardee. The well-pro­duced pro­gramme, which in­clud­ed live per­for­mances, was smooth­ly run by stage-pro­duc­tion man­ag­er Leslynne Matthews, and a stage crew that in­clud­ed Bev­er­ly Hinds, An­dre Williams, Lu­cien Long and Ed­ward Arthur. One thing though that the or­gan­is­ers must be more mind­ful of for fu­ture pro­duc­tions of this na­ture, is the pro­vi­sion of well-print­ed bios and da­ta for em­cees. There were times when pa­trons won­dered whether show hosts Sharon Pitt and David Hug­gins, be­cause of a few 'flubs' made, were not pro­vid­ed with well script­ed texts, or whether light­ing was poor back­stage.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, once again, the so-called 'lovers of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment' failed to sup­port a pan event, de­spite its ad­mis­sion be­ing a mere $200. It was a sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment for the steel­band move­ment so one would have thought that John and Mary Pub­lic would have jumped at the op­por­tu­ni­ty to come out to this gala pro­duc­tion to lend sup­port to the he­roes of the steel­band move­ment, and mark its his­toric land­mark an­niver­sary. Mak­ing guest ap­pear­ances on the evening were Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus, Gold­en Hands Steel Or­ches­tra, Suc­cess Stars, Les Juenes Agape, Damion Melville, Broth­er Su­pe­ri­or and Black Stal­in. Stal­in was the stand­out on the night, though. His four-song set was per­fect­ly de­liv­ered, es­pe­cial­ly his ren­di­tion of De Pan­man Stay, ac­com­pa­nied by just gui­tarist Joey Rivers and a fe­male flautist, and de­liv­ered in bal­lad style. Be­fore the be­gin­ning of the show, leg­endary pan icon Bertie Mar­shall suf­fered an un­for­tu­nate mishap as he col­lapsed on the steps of NA­PA, oc­ca­sion­ing a wound to his head. He was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal by am­bu­lance.

Min­is­ter Pe­ters de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress dur­ing which he promised that Pan Trin­ba­go would have its long over­due steel­band head­quar­ters, at its site on Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, Trinci­ty. One can on­ly hope that the orig­i­nal plan would be scrapped and re­placed by a much larg­er and grander ed­i­fice, de­serv­ing of the world's fore­most steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tion. These are ex­cit­ing times for the steel­band move­ment as it con­tin­ues to progress and de­vel­op. Apart from the much an­tic­i­pat­ed 2012 Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, the or­gan­i­sa­tion has al­ready start­ed mak­ing plans to host the first In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on the Steel­band next year. To­mor­row from 10 am, Pan Trin­ba­go con­tin­ues its Steel­band Month ac­tiv­i­ties by stag­ing a Steel­band Youth Ral­ly, at Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um Car Park, in Mal­abar, Ari­ma.

Re­cip­i­ents of Awards

The Pan Trin­ba­go Award-Joan Yuille-Williams

Bertie Mar­shall & An­tho­ny Williams Award (Tuners)-Ji­mi Phillips, Ken­rick Parmell, Den­zil "Dimes" Her­nan­dez

Syd­ney Gol­lop Award (Pan Pi­o­neers)-Car­los King, Li­onel David, Granville Sealy, Fitzger­ald Lennon, Hugh Ram­sey, Vin­cent Lila Hue Loy, Yip Young, Joseph Long

Ma­jorie Pad­more Award (Women in Steel)-Jem­ma Duke, Michelle Hug­gins-Watts, Joslynne Sealey, Louise Mc In­tosh (posthu­mous)

Clive Bradley Award (Arrangers)

-Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore, Dr Jit Sama­roo, Leon "Smooth" Ed­wards, Paul Camp­bell

Nathaniel Crichlow Award (Steel­bands) Curepe Scherzan­do, Mer­ry­tones, T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps, T&TEC East New Di­men­sion, St James Tripo­lians

George God­dard Award (Friends of the Steel­band)-Petrotrin, THA, Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip, Dr An­ton Cum­ber­batch, An­to­nio Nadur.

Nicholas In­niss Award (Spon­sors)

-First Cit­i­zens, NL­CB, NGC, Sco­tia­bank.