Music Festival contest heats up

THE PACE of competition at the 26th Biennial Trinidad and Tobago Music Festival, is expected to quicken and heat up from today, with the scheduled start of the “Championship Week” round, in which 104 awards will be up for grabs including the prestigious Newsday Cup. Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s and Naparima Bowl, San Fernando are the designated arenas for the series of intense music competition slated to last all week long, where performers will via for the cups, trophies and shields.

The Newsday Cup will go to the best guitarist in Class 85 — Guitar Solo. However, because of the nature of this morning’s competition the Queen’s Hall venue has been changed to the Tranquillity Methodist Church, to accommodate organ soloists listed to perform in Classes 87a and 87b, which will herald the race for the ultimate divisional national prizes. Showtime is 10 am. The public is invited to attend and admission is free. Additionally, this Saturday night’s programme, originally advertised to take place at Naparima Bowl, has been relocated to Naparima Girls’ High School, San Fernando, to accommodate Seventh Day Adventist participants taking part in the festival, who could not perform on Friday night.

The Championship Week takes the spotlight following two-and-a-half-weeks of exciting and sometimes gruelling sessions of fierce competition by musicians of all ages from across Trinidad and Tobago. After months of preparation, these musicians finally made it centre-stage to deliver their musical wares before adjudicators Dr D Douglas Miller (American) and Professor Melville James Hurst (Canadian). Although mainly small audiences have turned up so far, they have been entertained by soloists, duets, trios, quartets and ensembles, as well as male and female choirs, performing a variety of music ranging from calypso, opera, classical, parang and gospel. Now that these regional finalists (from north, south and Tobago) in their respective disciplines have been chosen, they will meet with the intention to out do each other and claim the top national prizes. This week’s performances during the “Championship Week,” at Queen’s Hall and Naparima Bowl, are expected to be intense and a musical treat can be expected by all.

Music Festival Programme:

Monday March 22: 10am
Tranquillity Methodist Church
Class 87a — Organ Solo Class
Test Pieces: (a) Voluntary in G — Andante (b) Allegro and Largo Andante — M Greene
Class 87b — Organ Solo Class
Test Piece: Tuba Tune — Lang
 Presentation of Jean Padmore George Trophy — Organ Class.