Port-of-Spain, Trinidad,
W.I. - BP Renegades Steel Orchestra swept the field on the opening night of the National Steelband Music Festival – Pan Is Beautiful XI
- held at the La Joya complex St Joseph,
Trinidad, on Thursday 20th November 2008, marking a successful return to the Festival scene for the band after a 20-year
absence. Micahi Felician playing Rossini’s ‘Barber of Seville’ topped the soloist category while Levi Ettienne and Cleveland King did the same in the duets category playing ‘Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No.1 IV’. Later Kain Cox, Ishmael Wharton, Aaron Franklin and Kayesha Ollivierre brought down the house in the quartet category with a splendid performance of Schubert’s ‘Scherzo’ that saw them copping the top spot for a clean sweep by the players of BP Renegades, most of whom were not even born when the band last appeared in the Steelband Music Festival in 1988.
When the full Orchestra category takes to the Jean Pierre Complex Stage on November 30th it will mark only the fifth occasion that BP Renegades will be appearing in the Steelband Music Festival. The band first entered the fray in 1982 but failed to make the finals. They returned in 1984 and took second place with ‘Orpheus in Hades’ by Offenbach and ‘Sweet Pan’ by Kitchener. In 1986 the band again failed to make the finals but again placed second in 1988 with Gustav Holst’s ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ and Kitchener’s ‘Pan in A Minor’. Thereafter the band bowed out of the festival circuit and has never returned, largely because of a heavy tour commitment. This year marks also the first occasion on which the band is participating in the minor categories in which they have swept the field. All the classical arrangements, both for the orchestra and in the minor categories are being handled by Desmond Waithe who will also conduct the orchestra on November 30. Amrit Samaroo, son of the band's musical director emeritus is handling the arrangement of the test piece, Sparrow's 'Document Pan'.
From the News Desk
of: Sean
Nero