T&T, along with the rest of the re­gion and be­yond, is on the fi­nal stretch in prepa­ra­tion for Car­ifes­ta XIV, the re­gion’s pre­mier arts fes­ti­val.

A state­ment from or­gan­is­ers of the event said this coun­try’s host­ing of the 14th edi­tion of this fes­ti­val promis­es to be epic; with over 200 events sched­uled across per­form­ing spaces in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­tween Au­gust 16 to 25

The state­ment said au­di­ences will be im­mersed in the dance, the­atre, film, food, vi­su­al and lit­er­ary arts and of course mu­sic of the re­gion, as del­e­gates from 20 coun­tries join Trinidad and To­ba­go to cel­e­brate the arts.

Every genre of mu­sic has been pro­grammed in­to what is cer­tain­ly a most di­verse reper­toire of Caribbean mu­sic, and T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the steel pan, takes cen­tre stage.

The of­fi­cial Car­ifes­ta XIV open­ing cer­e­mo­ny is pre­ced­ed by a pa­rade around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah fea­tur­ing all the par­tic­i­pat­ing na­tions, in­clud­ing the T&T del­e­ga­tion.

The women take lead with the first sig­nal event on 17 at Na­pari­ma Bowl- ‘By Women On­ly, For Every­one’.

The cast of 21 women will fea­ture Natasha Joseph on the steel pan along with phe­nom­e­nal per­for­mances from the best in the re­gion in­clud­ing Xavier Strings, Sal­ly Sagram, Ren­nette De­sir from Haiti and Claudette Pe­ters out of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da to name a few.

T&T’’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment will be in­te­grat­ed in­to all as­pects of the fes­ti­val, from per­for­mances in the dai­ly con­cert se­ries at the Streets of the Caribbean Grand Mar­ket, to T&T’s Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra pro­vid­ing all the mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment for ‘Moon on a Rain­bow Shawl’ at NA­PA on Au­gust 17.

The next day, Au­gust 18, two of the coun­try’ss top men of steel, Dane Gul­ston and Jo­hann Chucka­ree, grace an­oth­er Car­ifes­ta XIV stage at Queen’s Hall for ‘Rhythms of the Caribbean’, where they will per­form with leg­ends such as David Rud­der, Mun­gal Patasar and Pan­tar, as well as To­ba­go’s very own Garvé Sandy and re­gion­al acts in­clud­ing a tra­di­tion­al Jing Ping Band out of Do­mini­ca.

Al­so on that day, the young del­e­gates of the re­gion and T&T will be Bish­op Anstey High School for ‘Rid­dim and Steel Sun­day’, the sec­ond in the For­ev­er Young Con­cert Se­ries.

As the cur­tain be­gins to close on the event, the Is­land Beats Con­cert on Au­gust 24 fea­tur­ing in­ter­na­tion­al stars Shag­gy, Kas­sav and Machel Mon­tano, will open with the na­tion­al an­them played on the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, ring­ing out at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, herald­ing the pride of T&T’s her­itage.