Support music festival

THE EDITOR: The Music Festival will be celebrating 70 years this year. Holy Moses! How is that for longevity? It blasts off on February 18, and ends on March 17.

Now let me get me get this off my chest. As a boy I fell in love with the Music Festival, and sung at two in the “Mecca of Music,” the prestigious Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, Port of Spain. As I understand it, the Music Festival is not mainly about rivalry, it is about competitors spurring each other on to excellence. Holy Mama! I applaud the work of the organising committee, corporate sponsors, volunteers, well-wishers and government who throw something in the kitty. However, my beef is that the Music Festival which showcases the musical talents of citizens, should be restored to its former glory. The 2016 edition was a truncated. Funding has been a major challenge.With the talk of “events tourism” in the air, the time has come for all stakeholders to put heads together to make sure this festival does not end up in Lapeyrouse cemetery. The Music Festival, TUCO and Pan Trinbago also need a home.

Focusing of festivals, another festival I like as much as a good oildown with hog features, is the Steelband Music Festival which has collapsed. In my respectful view, the last great festival was in 1992 when Desperadoes eat the competition raw like pan salmon.

As a serious “culture man,” the discordant notes today among stakeholders in the pan movement are doing Trinbago no good. The outside world laughing “Kiff, kiff.” Gentlemen sort out your pan problems! Cultural and tourism officials step up to the plate, stop “bepping” on yourselves.

Keith “Culture Man” Anderson, Santa Cruz