SAN­DRA L BLOOD

On March 7, the man­age­ment and mem­bers of Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus Steel Or­ches­tra (XO), along with spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests, gath­ered at the home of the bank’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Nigel Bap­tiste, to cel­e­brate the band’s vic­to­ry at this year’s Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nal.

Among the bank’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives were pres­i­dent and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor (des­ig­nate) Richard Sam­my, gen­er­al man­ag­er Karen Yip Chuck, vice-pres­i­dent Paras­ram Sal­ick­ram and spon­sor—band li­ai­son man­ag­er Reena Gopaul.

The band’s sixth cham­pi­onship ti­tle was de­scribed as a ro­man­tic let­ter from the judges on the night of Valen­tine’s Day, with the sweet aro­ma of vic­to­ry drift­ing through the pa­n­yard like fresh­ly cut red ros­es.

Af­ter bp Rene­gades, the 13-time cham­pi­ons, won the pre­lim­i­nary and semi­fi­nal rounds, XO set its sights on dis­rupt­ing their ri­vals’ mo­men­tum. Fol­low­ing the semi­fi­nal, the band con­sult­ed with a team of ex­pert mu­si­cians to fine-tune its per­for­mance.

Look­ing ahead to 2027, the band’s goal is to be­come on­ly the sec­ond large con­ven­tion­al band to achieve a Panora­ma hat-trick, match­ing the feat of bp Rene­gades.

Man­ag­er Ainsworth Mo­hammed and the board said they were thrilled with the vic­to­ry and com­mend­ed the pan­nists, arrangers and drill mas­ter for their ded­i­ca­tion.

Dur­ing his ad­dress, Sam­my said, “It’s a two-time com­ing-from-be­hind vic­to­ry, and at Re­pub­lic Bank we call it a win­ning streak. The on­ly thing that fol­lows a win­ning streak is a hat-trick.”

A beam­ing cap­tain Julie Williams added, “It was hard work, but the vic­to­ry is sweet. It was a come­back from be­hind, and next year we will make it a hat-trick.”

XO al­so thanked its spon­sor and all those who con­tributed to the cel­e­bra­to­ry ac­tiv­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly the vic­to­ry par­ty.

The band is re­gard­ed as a pride of east Trinidad. This year it cel­e­brates its 45th an­niver­sary and 44 years of part­ner­ship with Re­pub­lic Bank.

Gopaul said Re­pub­lic Bank is proud of the band’s achieve­ments, which in­clude six Na­tion­al Panora­ma ti­tles (1992, 2001, 2003 and 2004 un­der Pel­ham God­dard, and 2025 and 2026 un­der the joint arrange­ment of God­dard and Ter­rence “BJ” Mar­celle), 13 East Zone Panora­ma ti­tles, three World Mu­sic Fes­ti­val ti­tles and two Na­tion­al Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val ti­tles.

In 2014, the band was al­so award­ed Best In­ter­na­tion­al Band and Best Over­all Win­ner at the Zim­bab­we Harare Cen­tral Car­ni­val Street Pa­rade.