SAN­DRA L BLOOD

M ul­ti-tal­ent­ed, award-win­ning steel­band arranger Am­rit Sama­roo was guest artiste and com­pos­er in res­i­dence for the Per­cus­sive Arts So­ci­ety South Car­oli­na Fes­ti­val of Steel in April. The fes­ti­val was pro­duced and host­ed by Dr Jesse Willis and Coastal Car­oli­na Uni­ver­si­ty (CCU).

Sama­roo worked on cam­pus with CCU stu­dents and coached the uni­ver­si­ty’s steel­band, Ca­lyp­Sam­ba, for their per­for­mance of five orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions that pre­miered at the fes­ti­val. Ca­lyp­Sam­ba al­so per­formed Sama­roo’s arrange­ment of Bruno Mars’ Grenade, which earned his lo­cal band, Su­per­novas, first place at the 2023 Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val.

Sama­roo al­so vis­it­ed Sum­merville, South Car­oli­na, for a week-long res­i­den­cy with steel­bands in the Dorch­ester Dis­trict 2 School Dis­trict (DD2). That vis­it was or­gan­ised by steel­pan ed­u­ca­tion co­or­di­na­tor Mike Greer.

He worked with mid­dle schools and high schools. The stu­dents, ages 11-18 years, even­tu­al­ly per­formed at a con­cert on April 26 at Wheel­wright Au­di­to­ri­um, Con­way.

Sama­roo was one of two guest ad­ju­di­ca­tors and clin­i­cians. The oth­er, Emi­ly Lem­mer­man, is the first woman to tune steel­pans for Panora­ma in T&T.

Sama­roo ad­ju­di­cat­ed, scored and analysed per­for­mances, ad­vised on ar­eas worth im­prov­ing, and fa­cil­i­tat­ed hands-on train­ing and ex­er­cis­es, in­clud­ing a pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment mas­ter class on ar­rang­ing and com­po­si­tion on April 30, for di­rec­tors of sev­er­al DD2 mid­dle and high school and col­lege bands, and re­cent col­lege grad­u­ates.

“Am­rit’s an amaz­ing mu­si­cal artiste with a unique voice, and he is an even bet­ter per­son,” said Wills.

“I had worked with him since 2017, hav­ing brought my stu­dents to work with him in Trinidad. He fa­cil­i­tat­ed clin­ics and work­shops to our groups dur­ing each of our study-abroad trips.

“When I was play­ing in Su­per­novas in 2023, I called my friends back in South Car­oli­na and told them that we need­ed to bring Am­rit to our state to share his knowl­edge and his mu­sic. We were fi­nal­ly able to make this hap­pen this past April.”

Sama­roo’s orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions were Shale (soft rock), Man­a­tee’s Waltz (waltz), Man­a­tee’s Theme (Castil­ian), Hit For Six (Be­m­be-in­spired), Bossa Tune (Bossa no­va), Bigu­ine The Dance (be­guine-in­spired), Steel Pun­jabi (Bol­ly­wood, Hip Hop and Pun­jabi col­lab), and Ac­k­ee and Salt­fish and Coastin’ In The Evening (Ca­lyp­so­ca; Panora­ma-in­flu­enced).

The con­cert se­ries was head­lined by South Car­oli­na’s flag­ship band Green Wave Steel­band (GWSB) from Sum­merville High School and fea­tured John Will­marth and Sama­roo’s mu­sic.