SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­san­dral@ya­hoo.com

The 220th Com­mon­wealth Point of Light hon­oree of Her Roy­al High­ness Queen Eliz­a­beth II—head of the Com­mon­wealth, di­rec­tor and arranger for the NL­CB Fon­claire Steel Or­ches­tra, Dar­ren Shep­pard, said he and his four-man cast are prepar­ing to mes­merise pa­trons on Au­gust 26, with his event that cel­e­brates his liv­ing, Shep­py The Con­cert, at Na­pari­ma Bowl—The Cul­tur­al Soul of South The Cul­tur­al Soul of South—9-21 Par­adise Pas­ture, San Fer­nan­do, from 8-11 pm with gates to be opened at 7pm.

Al­so to be fea­tured are in­ter­na­tion­al parang queen, Ali­cia Jag­gasar, for­mer Miss T&T Tal­ent, song­writer and artiste, Mori­cia Ca­gan, jazz R&B and pop singer, song­writer, pi­anist, record­ing artiste Sher­ma An­drews, jazz con­nois­seur Vaugh­nette Big­ford, and NL­CB Fon­claire Steel Or­ches­tra.

Shep­pard is cel­e­brat­ing his 50th birth­day and has been a loy­al mem­ber of Fon­claire Steel Or­ches­tra for 42 of those years.

Ear­li­er this year, Shep­pard was iden­ti­fied for his ex­cep­tion­al vol­un­tary ser­vice ex­tend­ed to chil­dren, youth and se­niors via his pan mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes, said a British re­lease, where in ex­cess of 1,000 chil­dren span­ning schools in south Trinidad ben­e­fit­ted.

The award will be pre­sent­ed to Shep­pard at Fon­claire’s pa­n­yard on Au­gust 23 at 6pm by the British High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T, Har­ri­et Cross.

The Com­mon­wealth Points of Light awards ap­pre­ci­ates and cel­e­brates acts by vol­un­teers rep­re­sent­ing the 54 Com­mon­wealth na­tions, in­spir­ing oth­ers to do well and as­sist­ing in bet­ter­ment on a whole. One vol­un­teer per week is recog­nised.

The lone steel orchestra for Sheppie The Concert, NLCB Fonclaire Steel Orchestra, performs at an event with musical arranger, director Darren Sheppard, left, playing the tenor.

Shep­pard said the award doesn’t on­ly shine a light on him, but al­so on the mag­nif­i­cent pow­er of T&T’s steel­pan mu­sic and the amaz­ing com­mu­ni­ty that gave birth to “our” steel­band.

He said he con­tin­u­ous­ly thanks God for be­ing at the cen­tre of his work, and will al­so for­ev­er thank Her Majesty, Queen Eliz­a­beth II for the re­spec­tive ho­n­our be­stowed up­on him.

In a re­lease from the British High Com­mis­sion, High Com­mis­sion­er Cross said she will be de­light­ed to present Shep­pard with the award on be­half of Her Roy­al Majesty.

She de­scribed Shep­pard as “an ad­mirable ex­am­ple of some­one who works con­tin­u­ous­ly to em­pow­er his com­mu­ni­ty through his work with young peo­ple. In ad­di­tion to high­light­ing Dar­ren’s work which dri­ves pos­i­tive change in San Fer­nan­do, I hope this award in­spires peo­ple to ded­i­cate them­selves to im­prov­ing their own com­mu­ni­ties and their coun­try.”