By Sam Roberts
When the medium conventional steel orchestras take to the stage for Trinidad and Tobago’s Panorama finals on the night of February 4 at the Dwight Yorke Stadium in Tobago, there will be something new and exciting, especially for citizens of Antigua and Barbuda.
The Arima Angel Harps will be playing Khan Cordice’s arrangement of Duke’s 1987 road march hit “Is Thunder”, making him the first musical arranger from this country to have arranged for a band that has made it to Trinidad and Tobago’s National Panorama finals.
Having gotten to the finals he will have his work cut out for him if he is to win, as medium band heavyweights Katzenjammers, Couva Joylanders, Pan Elders, and Curepe Scherzando are all ahead of Angel Harps on points coming out of the semifinal round. Cordice and the Angel Harps scored 261 points and are in eighth position going into the finals, 15 points behind leaders Katzenjammers.
Recent history also is pulling against the Antiguan and Barbudan maestro, as the last two times that the Arima Angel Harps made it to the finals, they finished dead last. The Harps will look to their talented arranger to help them reverse these fortunes.
All bands start with zero points in the finals since points are not carried forward, and they have as good a chance as any other band to win the title. All of this notwithstanding, Cordice is now in a place where no other Antiguan and Barbudan has ever been.
Cordice’s trailblazing path will continue in the finals of the “World Cup of Pan” when the large conventional bands battle it out on finals night on February 10. He is the drill master for Republic Bank Exodus Steel Orchestra, one of Trinidad and Tobago’s iconic bands.
With arranger Terrence BJ Marcelle, they piloted Exodus to second-place honours in Panorama 2023, the band’s best showing in years. Last year they played Sir MacLean Emanuel’s “Tourist Leggo” and this year they are playing Arrow’s “Long Time”. Exodus was third in the semifinal round of the competition scoring 279 points, three points behind defending champs bp Renegades and two points behind the entertaining Massy Trinidad All Stars.
Victory in either or both competitions would extend what has already been a history-making year for this phenomenal son of the soil. He is Antigua and Barbuda’s most successful Panorama arranger, having won nine Panorama titles with the Hells Gate Steel Orchestra, the first of which was in 2009 while he was still a teenager, to his most recent victory in 2023.
The medium band finals begin at 7pm and the Arima Angel Harps are playing in position number three.
