OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Bish­op Anstey and Trin­i­ty Col­lege East (BATCE) Steel Or­ches­tra has once again demon­strat­ed its mu­si­cal prowess, se­cur­ing its sec­ond Ju­nior Panora­ma ti­tle in the Sec­ondary School cat­e­go­ry.

BATCE first claimed vic­to­ry in 2020 with a pow­er­ful per­for­mance of This is De Place by Patrice Roberts, arranged by An­tho­ny Miller and Jonathan Wat­son. Their dy­nam­ic ex­e­cu­tion and pre­ci­sion earned them top ho­n­ours in the com­pe­ti­tion then.

This year, the tal­ent­ed en­sem­ble tri­umphed once more, de­liv­er­ing an elec­tri­fy­ing ren­di­tion of Trinidad Sweet by Voice and V’ghn. The per­for­mance, led by Je­hzara Lee­babb and arranged by Jo­van­ni Gib­son and Joaquin Headley, cap­ti­vat­ed judges and spec­ta­tors alike, so­lid­i­fy­ing BATCE’s rep­u­ta­tion as a force on the Ju­nior Panora­ma cir­cuit.

What makes the win even sweet­er for the school in East Trinidad is that most of the mu­si­cal arrange­ments and di­rec­tions were done by stu­dents.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, one of the mu­si­cal di­rec­tors, Jio­van­ni Car­navon-Gib­son, an Up­per-Six stu­dent, shared the jour­ney to suc­cess for 2025.

“Com­ing in­to the school in Form 1 in 2020, the school al­so won that year with an arrange­ment of This Is De Place by Patrice Roberts. This marks my sec­ond year as an arranger, along­side Jacque­line Headley, my co-arranger, win­ning with the arrange­ment of Trinidad Sweet. The at­mos­phere around the school has been cel­e­bra­to­ry since Mon­day, af­ter re­ceiv­ing the news of our vic­to­ry on Sun­day,” he ex­plained.

Gib­son con­tin­ued, “This year, the jour­ney was quite smooth—not with­out its chal­lenges, but still a seam­less process in terms of ar­rang­ing the mu­sic, de­liv­er­ing it to the play­ers, and en­sur­ing they could in­ter­pret and learn it ef­fec­tive­ly.”

This is his first time as an arranger, but it has been his dream to win the Ju­nior Panora­ma.

Gib­son said, “One of my life­long goals has been to achieve a Panora­ma win while still in school, and this vic­to­ry has made that dream a re­al­i­ty. I have been in­volved in mu­sic since the age of two or three, and while the jour­ney has been long, it has al­so been in­cred­i­bly re­ward­ing and en­joy­able.”

The at­mos­phere in the school was cel­e­bra­to­ry.

Ariel James, Mu­si­cal Di­rec­tor of the Se­nior Band and co-mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of the BATCE Steel Or­ches­tra, said, “So it’s re­al­ly all of us work­ing to­geth­er, be­ing on the same page, that led to the suc­cess, and that’s what hap­pened this year. It was just per­fect, and hence, we got the vic­to­ry.”

James said the on­ly chal­lenge faced was mo­ti­vat­ing the play­ers and show­ing them that they could suc­ceed, which was an im­por­tant part of the jour­ney.

“While it wasn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly a chal­lenge, it was still es­sen­tial be­cause, as teach­ers and lead­ers, we serve as role mod­els for them. I al­so want to ex­tend a spe­cial thank you to Miss Tanya Hart. With­out her, this achieve­ment would not have been pos­si­ble. She is Trin­i­ty Col­lege East’s mu­sic teacher and has been a vi­tal part of this process for a long time,” she stat­ed.