Trinidad & Tobago - A Celebration of Festivals - Trinidad and Tobago

FESTIVALS OF PANT h e N at i on a l I n s t r u m e n t on D i s p l ayThroughout the Year19Steelbands were born in communities, andthe panyards are centres for music as well ascommunity life. Competitions at Carnival havebeen organised to bring audiences to hear themusic in the panyards. Committees in manybands are not only staging their own panyardevents at different times of the year, but cooperatingto play in other yards. Some of thepanyard festivals that are putting pan on the mapare featured here. Panyard Sensations, nowin its fifth year of existence, is scheduled to be atwo month-long event of weekend pan concertshosted by the Tourism Development CompanyLimited in conjunction with PantrinbagoIncorporated.Carded to be featured this year are CaribDixieland Steel Orchestra in Tobago; T&TECEastside New Dimesion in Tobago; SouthernMarines in South Trinidad; Parry’s Pan Schoolin Tacarigua; Excellent Stores Silver Stars inFestivals of Trinidad & TobagoNewtown; The Couva Joylanders; the Solo panKnights of Baraatria and Courts Sound Specialistsof Laventille.Staging its Fourth Edition in 2006, The Trinidadand Tobago Steel Pan & Jazz Festival boasts ofa history of highest quality concert productionsthat have featured some of jazz-world’s livinglegends and leading exponents of the art of Steelpan playing. This year’s show promises to be ofan internationally competitive caliber and willattract visitors from global markets. It showcasesthe best of Pan in a concert format alongsideother elements of the culture such as the tassadrumming, tamboo bamboo, rapso, talkcalypso,and some of Trinidad and Tobago’s best folkchoirs.Concerts have been held at Valley Harps SteelOrchestra Pan Theater (North) and at the NLCBFonclaire Steel Orchestra (South), in additionto Exodus, Neal & Massey All Stars, TCL SkiffleBunch, Tobago Our Boys, Tropical Angel Harps,RBTT Redemption Sound Setters, La HorquettaPan Groove and Trinidad Nostalgia; and featuredBrother Resistance, extempo champion BlackSage, Karega Mandela, saxophonist Jesse Ryan,Ken “Professor” Philmore, Len Boogsie Sharpeand others.The Pan coalition in the West - Playboyz,Invaders, Phase II and Starlift - are alsoresponsible for a series of pan concerts that takeplace in their panyards.The Laventille Steelband Festival, startedover five years ago, also invites pan lovers toa programme of concerts organised by theLaventille Community Committee, from the lasttwo weeks of July through the Emancipationholiday in the first week in August.The concert programme culminates in a streetparade, on the “Eastern Parkway”: fromMcAllister Street along the Eastern Main Roadto Leon Street. There is also an educationalcomponent of the Laventille festival - a two weekpan camp for nine to 17-year-olds selected fromschools in Laventille. The camps cover intensivesessions in pan playing and history, music practiceand theory. They are also intended to identifyand generate interest in careers in Pan; andmaintain Laventille’s prominence as the placewhere the instrument was born.In the weeks before Christmas, Excellent StoresSilver Stars on Tragarete Road hosts “Parang andSteel” - concerts of traditional Christmas music- in their panyard on Tragarete Road.Where and when:Contact TDC (www.visittnt.com),Pan Trinbago (www.pantrinbago.com)or Trinidad and Tobago Steelpan and Jazz(www.trinidadtobagosteelpanjazz.com) for timelyinformation about Pan events.When in T&T, check the daily newspapers.\ Index View Print Exit /