SAN­DRA L BLOOD

For more than half a cen­tu­ry, the re­la­tion­ship be­tween bpTT and the leg­endary Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra has echoed far be­yond the pa­n­yard—res­onat­ing as one of the longest and most en­dur­ing spon­sor­ships in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al his­to­ry.

This year, the en­er­gy gi­ant marked 65 years of op­er­at­ing in T&T, while cel­e­brat­ing 56 years of spon­sor­ing Rene­gades, a part­ner­ship that both or­gan­i­sa­tions say has grown in­to some­thing far deep­er than cor­po­rate sup­port.

The mile­stone was com­mem­o­rat­ed last month at the Rene­gades pa­n­yard dur­ing Spon­sor Night: Sap­phire, a spe­cial­ly cu­rat­ed cel­e­bra­tion ho­n­our­ing the two an­niver­saries—65 sym­bol­ised by the blue sap­phire and 56 rep­re­sent­ing pas­sion and en­er­gy.

For bpTT, whose mis­sion in­cludes de­liv­er­ing world-class en­er­gy while “fu­elling progress and de­vel­op­ing our peo­ple,” the part­ner­ship with Rene­gades has be­come a defin­ing part of its sto­ry in T&T.

While the com­pa­ny works to en­hance pro­duc­tiv­i­ty across the coun­try’s en­er­gy val­ue chain, it al­so takes pride in sup­port­ing what many re­gard as an­oth­er vi­tal na­tion­al in­dus­try: steel­pan mu­sic.

Over the decades, Rene­gades has evolved in­to one of the most dec­o­rat­ed steel or­ches­tras in the world, se­cur­ing a record 13 Panora­ma ti­tles and help­ing to shape the mod­ern sound of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

At the cel­e­bra­tion, bpTT pres­i­dent David Camp­bell re­flect­ed on the depth of the part­ner­ship.
He told the gath­er­ing he was proud to be as­so­ci­at­ed with what may well be the longest cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship with­in the glob­al bp fam­i­ly.

Camp­bell praised Rene­gades’ mu­si­cal lega­cy and com­pet­i­tive ex­cel­lence, not­ing that the band con­tin­ues to raise the bar in the Panora­ma are­na.

Al­though the band placed sec­ond this year with arranger Du­vone Stew­art’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of The Lizard, the clas­sic ca­lyp­so com­posed and sung by Slinger “The Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co in 1969, its rep­u­ta­tion re­mains for­mi­da­ble.

Lega­cy of mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence

Rene­gades’ dom­i­nance in the steel­band move­ment has long been as­so­ci­at­ed with the pi­o­neer­ing lead­er­ship of Jit Sama­roo, whose arrange­ments pro­pelled the band to mul­ti­ple vic­to­ries and a re­mark­able Panora­ma hat-trick from 1995 to 1997.

To­day, that tra­di­tion of mu­si­cal in­no­va­tion con­tin­ues.

Dur­ing Spon­sor Night, guests were treat­ed to per­for­mances by the band led by Can­dice An­drews-Bru­mant.

Among the mu­si­cians was Sel­wyn “Snail” John, the band’s on­ly play­er who was there be­fore bpTT first stepped for­ward to spon­sor the group decades ago. His pres­ence served as a liv­ing re­minder of how far the or­ches­tra has come.

The cel­e­bra­to­ry at­mos­phere re­flect­ed the deep sense of kin­ship be­tween spon­sor and band.
bpTT staff wore bright blue shirts em­bla­zoned with the num­ber 65 on the front and 56 on the back, while Rene­gades play­ers sport­ed green shirts ac­knowl­edg­ing the Rene­gades-bpTT part­ner­ship.
Even the pan racks car­ried the num­bers mark­ing the twin an­niver­saries.

In a mo­ment that un­der­scored the evening’s theme of lega­cy, Camp­bell made a sur­prise pre­sen­ta­tion to the fam­i­ly of The Mighty Spar­row, whose song in­spired the band’s Panora­ma per­for­mance.

A com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque was pre­sent­ed to Spar­row’s daugh­ter Karen Fran­cis­co, while her grand­son Kano Fran­cis­co Williams ex­pe­ri­enced steel­pan per­for­mance for the first time.
Fran­cis­co thanked bpTT and Rene­gades for ho­n­our­ing her fa­ther’s mu­sic, while a record­ed mes­sage from the Ca­lyp­so King him­self formed part of the band’s Panora­ma pre­sen­ta­tion.

Be­hind the mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence lies a care­ful­ly nur­tured in­ter­nal cul­ture.
The or­ches­tra is guid­ed by a board of di­rec­tors led by band pres­i­dent Col­in Greaves, with sec­tion lead­ers play­ing a cen­tral role in build­ing ca­ma­raderie and keep­ing play­ers en­gaged through­out the year.

One high­light of the band’s in­ter­nal cal­en­dar is the Best Sec­tion Com­pe­ti­tion, held dur­ing the in­tense Panora­ma sea­son.

This year, the De Drone sec­tion, led by Jos­sane Ker­rice Fe­lix, claimed first prize of $5,000.
Oth­er tra­di­tions—from sec­tions’ T-shirt com­pe­ti­tions to so­cial events like the “Rep Yuh Band” boat ride, or­gan­ised by An­drews-Bru­mant and vice-cap­tain Cleve­land “Slick” King—re­in­force the band’s sense of com­mu­ni­ty.

More than spon­sor­ship

For Greaves, the part­ner­ship with bpTT has had im­pact far be­yond mu­sic.

“Some 56 years ago, you made a com­mit­ment to the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and the com­mu­ni­ty through your spon­sor­ship of Rene­gades,” he said in a mes­sage to the com­pa­ny.

“Our part­ner­ship has saved lives, pro­duced great­ness and pos­i­tive­ly con­tributed to the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

He al­so ac­knowl­edged the many bpTT rep­re­sen­ta­tives who helped nur­ture the re­la­tion­ship over the decades, in­clud­ing Ger­ard Jack­son, Ryan Chaitram, and more re­cent li­aisons Gamali Balka­ran and Karis­sa Bis­soon.

As the night un­fold­ed at the pa­n­yard, the sym­bol­ism of the cel­e­bra­tion be­came clear.

Blue sap­phire marked bpTT’s 65-year lega­cy in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The num­ber 56 re­flect­ed the en­er­gy and pas­sion sus­tain­ing its part­ner­ship with Rene­gades.

But be­yond num­bers and an­niver­saries, the evening cel­e­brat­ed some­thing deep­er—a shared be­lief that en­er­gy can be mea­sured not on­ly in bar­rels of gas, but al­so in the rhythms of steel­pan.

And as bpTT summed it up: af­ter 56 years of spon­sor­ship, sup­port and be­lief in the mu­sic, “the sound con­tin­ues.”