On Sunday the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall was the scene of a ferocious competition. There was no ball in play, no fistic fury and the competitors armed with sticks did not physically engage each other at any time. The occasion? The 2017 Pan-O-Rama steelpan competition.
The annual Mashramani competition is organised by the Ministry of Education, Department of Culture, Youth and Sport in three divisions, small youth bands, large youth bands and large bands. The event is run under strict rules and guidelines, with five judges, a chief judge and an official scorer, and this year’s test piece for youth bands featured music from Guyanese composer Sherlund Wilson, better known by his calypsonian sobriquet King Fighter, including ‘Suki gal’ and ‘He nah dead yet.’ The large bands were required to perform an original composition written specifically for the 2017 Pan-O-Rama.
A near capacity crowd was treated to an exhilarating evening of musical entertainment, as band after band rose to the occasion, giving incredible performances. The chosen test piece had to be played harmonically in its original form and then in a re-harmonized version by the competing bands. Only three of the five small bands scheduled made their appearance, laying the carpet for the highly competitive large youth band division.
The Bishops’ High School band set the tone for the seven entries with their rousing interpretation of ‘Animal jumping.’ Thereafter, each successive group set about lifting the roof off the arena with brilliant performances. The smartly clad school goers strode out onto the floor, brimming with confidence and bursting with pride, endeavouring to deliver their best efforts, accompanied by the boisterous cheers and screams of their families, friends and supporters.
The East Coast of Demerara was well represented by President’s College (Golden Grove), Mahaicony Secondary School and the GBTI Buxton Pride Steel Orchestra. The latter, runners-up in last year’s competition came prepared this year to settle the score. Led by their energetic conductor, the Buxton band delivered a performance for the ages. The highly appreciative audience was taken to another place in time during the allotted seven minutes as they delivered ‘All ah we is one.’ The spontaneous screams and clapping that greeted the completion of their rendition said it all. It was just too much for the defending champions and final performer North Ruimveldt Secondary School to top with ‘Suriname.’
The four large bands on show executed presentations of equally high quality and must have given the judges a very difficult task of separating the final podium positions. The panel of judges covered a wide range of experience and included a member of the first Guyana National Steel Orchestra, a classically trained musician and a pan player for over twenty-five years, two music teachers with over seventy years of combined experience and a member of the famed Woodside Choir.
The judging criteria covered four areas, with eighty per cent of the points being awarded in two areas, arrangement and general performance. The former comprised introduction, re-harmonization, melodic development and motivic development, whilst the latter covered interpretation, dynamics, presentation and deportment, and crowd response. In the dynamics category, the judges considered dynamics, colour, texture and balance. The two other areas examined included tone and rhythm.
As in all competitions of this nature, the judges cannot please everyone, but the results were well received by the large audience, many of whom stayed for the announcement. Queen’s College were declared the winners in the small youth band category, while Buxton nipped Pan Wave Academy by five points in the large youth band section. The National School of Music, the winners of the large band division, immediately charged onto the arena floor upon hearing the results, still clad in their overall whites (including white sox and shoeless), flung their baseball caps into the air and spontaneously began playing again their winning piece, Camo Williams’ ‘Pan paradise.’
The Ministry of Education, Republic Bank Ltd, the main sponsor of the event for the last nine years and GuyOil, the sponsor for the latest entrant in the competition, the Bartica Secondary School, must be congratulated on the organisation and execution of this event. The ministry’s goal of installing twenty steelbands in schools over the next five years will require much needed sponsorship and promotion. The discipline and appreciation of the art form, needless to say, the sense of pride and personal development realised by the participants are priceless values which are often lacking in today’s society.
The competition must be encouraged by all quarters to grow in leaps and bounds. The latest technologically developed pans will be required to be imported from Trinidad, the home of pan, the local level of pan tuning must be raised to international standards, and the youth must be encouraged to translate the benefit of their musical development into other aspects of their school life, and to appreciate that this art form presents an opportunity for a full-time career in music.
Guyana’s flag will be flying high in August when our worthy Ambassadors, the GBTI Buxton Pride Steel Orchestra represent the nation at Carifesta XIII in Barbados.
