SAN­DRA L BLOOD

Be­tween De­cem­ber 5 and 13, Pan Trin­ba­go en­gaged 45 steel­bands and bands in the Lega­cy Na­tion­al Panora­ma Small Con­ven­tion­al Band pre­lim­i­nary com­pe­ti­tion, judged across the North, East, South/Cen­tral, and To­ba­go re­gions.

From the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, 31 bands ad­vanced to the semi­fi­nals, sched­uled for to­mor­row at Vic­to­ria Square, Port-of-Spain.

Lead­ing the re­gions is South/Cen­tral, with South­ern Stars Steel Or­ches­tra/D’ South Band (SS­SO), un­der the di­rec­tion of Ri­car­do Mar­shall, top­ping pre­lim­i­nar­ies with 272 points for Let Us Build A Na­tion To­geth­er, arranged by mu­si­cal ex­tra­or­di­naire Du­vone Stew­art.

Among the 31 semi­fi­nal­ists were eight To­ba­go bands.

“It’s a re­sound­ing vic­to­ry,” To­ba­go Up­dates proud­ly re­port­ed.

Head­ing the To­ba­go con­tin­gent is Up­town Fas­ci­na­tors, led by Sal­isha James, who tied for sec­ond place with 269 points for Ojay Richards’ arrange­ment of Band From Space. East re­gion’s Fas­ci­na­tors Pan Sym­pho­ny, led by Make­da Dore-De­Four, per­formed Both of Them, arranged by Ste­fon West, al­so tal­lied 269 points.

Reign­ing over­all cham­pi­ons T&TEC East Side Di­men­sion tied for fourth with 267 points for Wa­ter De Gar­den, along­side Fu­sion Steel’s Sig­nal For Lara and T&T De­fence Force’s All Is Yours. Joint reign­ing cham­pi­on Gold­en Hands’ All Aboard earned sev­enth place with 265 points.

Pan Trin­ba­go To­ba­go chair­man Ker­ron Fletch­er ex­pressed pride in the To­ba­go bands. “They rarely dis­ap­point in the small­er cat­e­gories. They work hard, aim to mo­ti­vate the youth in and out of Panora­ma fes­ti­vals, and con­sis­tent­ly show strong per­for­mances across all cat­e­gories,” he said.

So far, for the 2026 Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, 94 bands com­pris­ing 3,688 play­ers from all four re­gions have com­pet­ed over 19 days, in­clud­ing the Sin­gle Pan fi­nals.

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore re­flect­ed on the fes­ti­val’s broad­er im­pact.

“Panora­ma is the pin­na­cle of steel­band ex­cel­lence. It stands as one of the most pow­er­ful steel­band fes­ti­vals in the world—an en­gine of em­pow­er­ment, op­por­tu­ni­ty, and na­tion­al pride,” she said.

“Each year, it em­ploys and up­lifts over 8,000 youth, women, and pan­men, fu­elling an eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al tourism ecosys­tem that sup­ports com­mu­ni­ties across T&T. It proud­ly show­cas­es our na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment while in­vest­ing in hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment, nur­tur­ing tal­ent, dis­ci­pline, cre­ativ­i­ty, and lead­er­ship for gen­er­a­tions to come.

“The com­pe­ti­tion is our lega­cy in mo­tion, built band by band and note by note. From the pa­n­yard to the Panora­ma stage, the in­stru­ment’s heart­beat con­tin­ues to echo across gen­er­a­tions.”

A stand­out sto­ry emerged from 11th-placed band in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, Tokyo Steel Or­ches­tra, who strug­gled to as­sem­ble play­ers night­ly. Re­mark­ably, the first full-band re­hearsal oc­curred on­ly dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nar­ies un­der the ba­ton of “Zan­da” Alexan­der, with mo­ti­va­tion com­ing from ten-year-old per­cus­sion­ist Key­mane Inkru­mar.

On be­half of man­age­ment, sec­re­tary/as­sis­tant man­ag­er Michelle Sal­cei­do ex­tend­ed deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion and con­grat­u­la­tions to the band, while Pan Trin­ba­go South/Cen­tral sec­re­tary Ke­Shari Cae­sar con­grat­u­lat­ed SS­SO. Ram­sey-Moore al­so ex­pressed “heart­felt thanks and ap­pre­ci­a­tion to every pre­lim­i­nary band, and con­grat­u­la­tions to the semi­fi­nal­ists.”

First up for the semi­fi­nals is TTDF, with the reign­ing 2025 cham­pi­ons ap­pear­ing in po­si­tions five and 28, and Tokyo in po­si­tion 19.

Of­fi­cial re­sults, or­der of semi­fi­nal ap­pear­ances, and up­dates are avail­able on Pan Trin­ba­go’s so­cial me­dia pages and web­site.

Semi­fi­nals:

De­cem­ber 20, 4 pm,

Vic­to­ria Square, Port-of-Spain | Ad­mis­sion: TT$100 / US$25

Tick­ets and mer­chan­dise:

Phys­i­cal: Pan Trin­ba­go Head Of­fice, 55 Dun­don­ald Street, POS (US$ ac­cept­ed) / call: +1 868 235-5493 / at the venue

On­line: pantrin­ba­go.co.tt / slan­det­ick­ets.com

Pay-per-view: pantrin­ba­go.car­ni­valtv.cloud