Silver Harps back in pan semis after 37 years

THIRTY-ONE dynamic steelbands in the small conventional band category will compete on January 18, at Victoria Square, Port of Spain, for one of 14 spots in the finals to be held on January 25 at Skinner Park, San Fernando.

Among them is the rejuvenated Silver Harps Steel Orchestra, which will be performing in the national semis for the first time in 37 years. This has evoked euphoria among members.

The band last played in the Panorama competition in 1988.

Manager Cheryl Daniel Mc Intosh explained the band had its origin in Cedros in the 1960s, but moved to Salazar Trace, Point Fortin, in 1973.

Its "hall-of-fame" records include being victorious in the 1973 Point Fortin Panorama competition and being the first band from the borough to make it to the national Panorama finals in 1980.

Though it was dormant for almost three decades following its heyday, 2016 saw a rebirth of Silver Harps, which Mc Intosh said is on a mission to preserve a cultural legacy in the community.

With a new generation of players, the band again competed in Pan Trinbago's Small Conventional Steelband preliminaries, playing its hearts out with a collective arrangement of SuperBlue’s Virginia by Oliver Hospedales, Kalisha Mc Intosh and Hudson Henry.

Point Fortin calypso/soca icon SuperBlue was on hand, supporting and hyping up the players before judges Michelle Dowrich, Dr Mia Gormandy-Benjamin, Joanna Short and Joanna Ragbir-Lesley made their appearance. The band scored 248 points, tying with Road Block Steel Orchestra and West Stars in position number 23, out of the 44 bands that participated in the preliminaries.

Mc Intosh said placing in the semifinals is akin to victory, which has given her band members, consisting of mainly youths from aged five and upwards, a confidence boost.

“Since 2006, we just reassembled the band and engaged the youths to keep them off the streets, and it has.
"They never expected to reach this far. To them this is a great achievement. It has also united the community, so much that on Saturday they have hired buses to come up to Victoria Square and support the players.”

Their success has also earned invitations from the Borough of Point Fortin for the Carnival event Pan on the Parkway and to play on the road for Carnival.

Coincidentally, the band will also play at number 23 in the competition, which will see Arima Golden Symphony opening what is expected to be an unforgettable experience, scheduled to begin at 4 pm.

Reigning champion T&TEC New East Side Dimension of Tobago will end the show, playing at number 31.

Golden Hands

Former 2018 winner Golden Hands steel orchestra will perform at number 9.

For Golden Hands, its participation in this year’s festival was touch and go for several reasons, among them financial and emotional.

Last August the band lost its founder and leader of 32 years Franka Headley. Her daughter Vanessa Headley-Brewster, president, artistic director and arranger, also lost a mother.

She was left at the helm, navigating the storm with courage, unwavering vision and musical brilliance, one of her students and executive bandmember Tylah Quan Chan said on day two of preliminary panyard judging for bands in the South/Central region on January 10.

In an interview with Newsday at the Golden Hand Conservatory, Independence Avenue, San Fernando, following the band's scintillating version of Lord Nelson’s Mih Lover, a tribute and a love letter to Franka, Headley-Brewster admitted, “We originally withdrew from the competition for many reasons, financial and otherwise, but the support from the people who have played with us and supported us over the years encouraged me to get it done.

“It was emotional, as expected, but really a joy to adjust, pull everyone and everything together, all the moving parts as a family team, to get to this point and hopefully straight to the finals.”

She explained a change from Golden Hands' panyard to  becoming Golden Hands Steelband Conservatory, which would have started in conversations with her late mother.

“It is not necessarily a renaming, but a way of preserving our history, our present and our future. We have really young members, our oldest being 21 and the youngest three. We are really a youth orchestra, which is where the future is.

“Our work and our music speak volumes. Apart from that we are very much into music literacy and furthering music education,” said the Berklee School of Music graduate.

Many of the students have studied music literacy and received music scholarships both locally and internationally, and they always come back and contribute to the band, she said.

After three decades the band, which is active throughout the year, remains unsponsored. In 2024 it won 15 prizes in the Trinidad and Tobago Music Festival and was declared winner of the Steelband Music Festival ensemble category, taking the best overall, best test piece and best dressed awards.

Although the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts gave Pan Trinbago $2,4 million to assist 149 unsponsored steelbands for Carnival 2025, Headly-Brewster  appealed to corporate TT to look and listen closely to the band and what it has to offer TT and the world and assist financially.

Old Tech seeks help

An appeal for financial assistance also came from Sean Ramsey, leader of Old Tech, which is in Pleasantville.

At the time of his band’s performance on January 10 of Lorraine, which was infused with Latin and East-Indian rhythms to demonstrate the diversity of TT and its players, Ramsey expressed confidence of a place in the semifinals. However, the band did not advance.

Ramsey said Old Tech is not only about playing pan but preparing the young players to become all-round young men and women.

To this end, he wants to establish homework centres and is seeking assistance from government and the business sector.

Small bands order of appearance

1 Arima Golden Symphony
2 West Stars Steel Orchestra
3 Plymouth Bethesda Steel Sensation
4 C&B Crown Cordaans
5 West Side Symphony Steel Orchestra
6 Alpha Pan Pioneers
7 Fusion Steel
8 Kalomo Kings
9 Golden Hands
10 Phoenix Steel Orchestra
11 Panosonic Connection
12 Perfect Cadence Steel Orchestra
13 TT Defence Force Steel Orchestra
14 Simple Song Steel Orchestra
15 St Margaret's Super Stars
16 Uptown Fascinators
17 Fascinators Pan Symphony
18 Our Boys Steel Orchestra
19 Southern Stars Steel Orchestra (D' South Band)
20 Harvard Harps
21 Motown Pan Theatre
22 La Horquetta Pan Groove
23 Silver Harps
24 Bon Air Rhythm Rockers Steel Orchestra
25 Todd's Road Rhythem Raiders
26 Road Block Steel Orchestra
27 First Citizens Tobago Pan-Thers
28 Nu Stars Steel Orchestra
29 Highlanders Steel Orchestra
30 Tokyo Steel Orchestra
31 T&TEC New East Side Dimension