Music Festival makes sweeping changes

The 33rd Biennial TT Music Festival has made sweeping changes to its composition. Festival chairman Jessel Murray said this was to make the event, which runs from March 1-28, more audience- and social-media-friendly.

One major change has been the consolidation of several classes and the retirement of others. Murray said 15-20 per cent of the competitive classes were either dropped or put on hold, with 148 out of 220 remaining. Musicianship classes such as sightreading were also retired.

“For instance, in the junior classes, there were several choir classes aimed at the same people, so they were consolidated. In the open classes, there were separate classes for sopranos, mezzo-sopranos and contraltos, and these have now been consolidated into one class for women soloists. The same has been done on the men’s side.

"We also kept the rapso class, which we are pleased to see has had an increase in entries. In addition, the composition class has been reserved only for steelpan pieces, so that we can grow the amount of steelpan repertoire in TT through the festival.”

Murray said to make the event more attractive to audiences, there would now be genre days for choir, steelpan, piano and other categories. Morning sessions have been consolidated to allow more schools to attend. The morning and evening sessions are at a cost, while the afternoon sessions are free, to attract greater audience turnout.

Adjudication is another area where changes have been made. There are two levels of the festival, junior and open classes. Murray said the junior classes are now open to people under 21, previously under 19. The open classes, commonly called the adult classes, are open to people as young as 12. The festival has preliminaries and finals in both categories and then the finalists
in each geographical area then compete for the national championships.

In past festivals, there have been two adjudicators have been either foreigners or locals based overseas. This year there will be a team of adjudicators for the junior classes, who will rotate between Queen’s Hall, Naparima Bowl and multiple venues in Scarborough, Tobago.

For the choral/vocal classes, the adjudicators will be musicologist Joslynne Sealey, Evette Graham from the Ministry of Education, and Rosie Ward, formerly of the University of the Southern Caribbean. UWI lecturers Satanand Sharma and Dr Jeannine Remy will adjudicate piano and pan respectively and Lenor Syder will adjudicate winds/strings.

The open class preliminaries and finals will be adjudicated by director of the Princeton Music Festival Richard Tang Yuk, who is from TT, and the championship performances by Brian Husband, a previous adjudicator, and Jiselle Rouet, who recently received a doctorate in ethno-musicology from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a former student of Murray’s.

Murray said the "back end" – the administrative aspect – of the festival has also been streamlined, with performers being able to apply online rather than at the various centres. The results will be posted online as soon as they are available, and there will be a 24-hour dispute resolution sub-committee in place.

In addition to trophies, the festival will be introducing cash bursaries for some championship categories.

“For instance, the Patrons of the Arts, formerly Patrons of Queen's Hall, will be offering a $10,000 bursary for the best steelpan player in the juniors, and we’re working on at least two other bursaries to offer to outstanding people, mostly juniors, so that they can continue with their particular study. For Festival 2022, we want to offer more bursaries, so instead of just the trophies, we’re advancing their career.”

Murray said normally only one person from each centre would compete in the championships, but this year the board has decided if there is a second-placed person in a division who, in the opinion of the adjudicators, should also be recommended for the championships, this would be done.

Murray is excited to see the audience response to the changes, and hoped they would be well received.

“I grew up in the festival and the adjudicated competition has helped make me and many of my colleagues and students here. Using more classical music as a vehicle has catapulted us into spheres of musicmaking in just about every genre.

"So there are a lot of things that we’re excited about and we intend to make really good music and have the spirit of the adjudication go forward.”

For more information on the schedule and cost of tickets, find 33rd Biennial T&T Music Festival on Facebook, and visit its website at https://ttmusicfestival.org/