Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning says the Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue de­vel­op­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to show­case the tal­ent of T&T.

Man­ning was ad­dress­ing his con­stituents in his San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy on Sat­ur­day night when he made the com­ments. His con­stituents were treat­ed to an ear­ly In­de­pen­dence Day gift at the Co­coyea Recre­ation­al Com­plex. A gift, Man­ning said, he owed his place of birth. Billed the Mu­si­cal Ex­pe­ri­ence, pa­trons were treat­ed to the sweet mu­sic of Di­vine Echoes and the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra led by Jes­sel Mur­ray.

De­fend­ing the de­ci­sion to build a Per­form­ing Arts Cen­tre in both San Fer­nan­do and Port-of-Spain, Man­ning said: "We thought young peo­ple did not have enough out­lets to show­case their tal­ent. We came up to build a Per­form­ing Arts Cen­tre in both South and Port-of-Spain."

He said the G-size pan would be among one of the in­stru­ments used to pro­mote the mu­si­cal cul­ture when the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) is host­ed in No­vem­ber. Man­ning, how­ev­er, re­vealed that plans were al­so on stream to es­tab­lish a Na­tion­al Har­mon­ic Or­ches­tra. "There is a stage for them and it will be at the CHOGM," he said. "Di­vine Echoes showed their tal­ent by play­ing mu­sic and from the first time I heard this band they have im­proved con­sid­er­ably...They are now sec­ond to none.

"Fol­low­ing the re­search in pan, the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra us­es the G-size steel­pan. It is the best steel­pan in the world...no oth­er steel­pan can beat the G-size steel­pan. "We have tal­ent in T&T and we are go­ing to show­case it." So in­fec­tious was the mu­sic of both the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra and Di­vine Echoes, pa­trons–even Man­ning and his wife Hazel–were seen sway­ing and tap­ping their feet when they belt­ed out tunes like Lord Nel­son's Meh Lover, Scrunter's Woman on The Base, the James Brown clas­sic, I Feel Good, Jit Sama­roo's Fes­ti­val of Voic­es and Pan In A Mi­nor, along with many more. Al­so in at­ten­dance were Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs Mar­lene Mc Don­ald, Min­is­ter in Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Ju­nia Re­grel­lo and San Fer­nan­do May­or Ken­neth Fer­gu­son.