Pannists told keep up the tempo

It was pan almost all day yesterday at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, and TT Music Festival adjudicator Dorothy Howden did not seem to mind. Again, it was the youngsters who came through. At the closure of the first half of Class 15, a steel pan category, she noted that the pan playing continued at a very high standard. At the end of the class session she told the young participants, “your standard of playing continues to be quite good. Once you continue that pace you would be quite successful, so hang in there.” The session took up almost the whole day with performances on tenors and double tenors, some accompanied by the piano. A few smaller players were a bit rough. They were at a disadvantage without the piano, and some of the pans were not properly tuned. But while it was that way at the beginning with the younger players, the session developed as the elder students performed on some brilliantly tuned tenor pans. There was judging in two classes–Class D15 and D17. Howden urged them to press on, with the view that she was quite certain they would be very successful.

In Class 15 there were more than 20 tenor pan soloists playing their test piece My dog has fleas written by Jeannine Remy, while contestants who performed on double-tenors, or seconds played the test piece The Black Anaconda written by Shea Remy. Among the soloists the adjudicator gave 91 points to Cailen Gill. She topped the class. The second highest score 91 was awarded to Jeremiah Noel, while Letisha Emanuel was received 89 marks. They are due to meet again at 9 am on March 1.

Meantime, the top three of Class D16 were also announced yesterday. They were Dejean Cain in first place; Chaela Lewis in second place, and Nkosi Clarence in third place. Their next step would be the championships. They competed last Wednesday. The festival resumes at 9 am tomorrow on its second week.