Maestre and Friends keeping parang alive in Canada

BAVINA SOOKDEO

“My childhood Christmases in Trinidad were so amazing. I have great memories… it was so much fun,” Antonio Maestre said nostalgically, as he reflected on growing up on St John’s Road in St Augustine. There, he was immersed in family life, tradition and the warm, sweet sounds of parang.

Now 62 and living in Canada, Maestre has spent more than three decades carrying that same Christmas spirit – rooted deeply in parang. A financial advisor by profession, he is also the founder and guiding force behind a Toronto-based parang group Maestre and Friends that continues to bring a taste of Trini Christmas to Caribbean communities abroad.

Parang, for Maestre was never just seasonal music. It was his inheritance. “I fell in love with parang music as a child,” he said. “My grandfather who I grew up with was a parang legend.” That grandfather, Luis de Leon, was a respected figure in the genre, known for composing, writing and performing parang. “There’s a book in Trinidad about the origins of parang entitled Parang of Trinidad by Daphne Pawan Taylor and he’s in part of it,” Maestre noted proudly.

Growing up with his sister and cousins all in the same yard, music filled the De Leon household. His father and uncles – all children of Luis de Leon – were involved in parang, and young Maestre absorbed it naturally. By 17, he was already playing with Los Alumnos, a parang band from his village formed in the 80s (not the band Los Alumnos de San Juan that exists today), and later joined Los Niños de Dios. He played the cuatro and guitar and also served as a lead singer. “I grew up in it from a little child,” he said. “The tradition – it’s in my blood.”

Parang in his heart

In 1988, at just 24 years old, Maestre migrated to Canada. What he initially saw as a chance to experience a different lifestyle became permanent. “It was a huge adjustment,” he admitted. “One of the main adjustments, of course, was the weather – the winter.”

But even in the cold, parang followed him warming his heart. “I always wanted to be part of parang, so I knew that I would somehow get involved and I did so right away,” he said. In his early years in Canada, Maestre played with La Petite Musical, a folk group that performed parang during the Christmas season. Still, the desire to create something more rooted in his own experience grew stronger.

After connecting with fellow St John’s Road native Lionel Herbert, Maestre decided to form a band. “With the conditions and the weather here, if we don’t have parang it could be boring,” he laughed. “So we decided to form this band and it went quite well.”

That decision marked the beginning of a long journey. Over the years, Maestre has been part of several groups – Los Chamos, Parang Sensation, Los Picantes – before settling into what would become his most enduring project: Maestre and Friends, a band now 14 years old.

Based in Toronto, the band typically consists of eight-ten members, most of them Trinidadian. Instruments remain faithful to tradition – cuatro, maracs, bass guitar, percussion, box bass and Maestre even added the steelpan. “We try to do the pattern that is used in Trinidad, especially when it comes to house parang.”

Introducing parang to Canadian audiences, however, was not without its challenges. “People didn’t know how to accept this type of music because in Canada they are accustomed to carolling,” he said. Education became part of every performance. “We had to explain that this is a tradition that we have in Trinidad, and we do it every year.”

House parang proved to be a bridge. While Trinidad’s house-to-house parang isn’t practical in Canada, the spirit remains. “Here, you go to one house for the night and everybody invites their friends over – it’s like a big party,” he said.

Over time, the band’s reach expanded beyond homes to larger stages. Maestre and Friends have performed at TT community events, Christmas concerts, restaurants and bars, and even at the High Commissioner of TT’s office in Ottawa and the TT Consulate in Toronto for several years. They have shared stages with soca parang artistes like Scrunter (Irwin Reyes Johnson), Crazy (Edwin Ayoung) and Baron (Timothy Watkins), often opening or closing major shows.

Questioned on what songs are popular in Canada he shared, “Madame Jeffrey by Scrunter and Spanish Woman by Baron and on the traditional side, songs like Alegría by Daisy Voisin. I am a Lara Brothers fan, so I do a lot of their songs – like Si tu quiere and La gallina – and we also do some Henry Pereira songs.”

Tradition and evolution

Still, Maestre acknowledged that the evolution of parang itself has brought new challenges – particularly the divide between traditional parang and soca parang. “The people who appreciate traditional parang is an older, more mature crowd,” he said. “The younger generation, they’re more into the soca parang.”

Education, he believes, is necessary. “A lot of the younger people didn’t grow up in it, so they don’t know the meaning of traditional parang and how it is supposed to be – how you start outside the door with the serenal, then the annunciation and the aguinaldo. There’s a pattern to it” he said.

Within the band itself, that balance between tradition and evolution continues to play out. His son, Miguel who now leads the group, brings a strong soca parang influence and has even recently released a soca track entitled Hornin in Trinidad in time for Carnival. The senior Maestre, meanwhile, has begun to step back from full-time performance. “This is the first year that I’m kind of taking a backseat,” he shared, “but I still guide and mentor the group and perform especially when it comes to traditional parang.”

Despite the changes, Maestre remains deeply committed. “Just the love of it,” he said, when asked what keeps him going. “It has given me a joyous Christmas time – from a musical standpoint and also from a religious standpoint.”

A devout Catholic, he values parang’s spiritual roots. “Parang is about the birth of Christ – the annunciation, the nativity. That religious aspect has played a major role for me.” Equally fulfilling he said is the joy it brings others.

Though far from home, Maestre keeps his Christmas traditions intact – church on Christmas Eve, ham, pastelles, music, togetherness.

As for the future, he explained that Maestre and Friends remains very much in progress. With a mix of younger and older members, the band continues to evolve as people move on, retire or relocate. Despite these changes, he noted that there are plans to keep performing regularly, especially during the Christmas season and to explore the possibility of recording in the future. “I hope the band continues to keep the parang flame alive and to keep captivating the audience and making people happy.”