Students from nine schools — five secondary and four primary — are slated to compete in the 2022 Schools Panorama competition to be held on October 31 at the Antigua Recreation Grounds (ARG).
The competition, like other national activities, is returning after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chairperson of the organising committee, Jerry Aska, told Observer media yesterday that schools are in preparation mode, and work is ongoing to iron out a number of challenges including a lack of instruments.
“We are trying our best to coordinate and make the competition easy and competitive. It’s a challenge because we have now found out that most of the primary schools who would not have had any competition, have new players, and then there is the issue of instruments,” Aska said.
As it relates to instruments, Aska explained that the plan is to partner with the established steel orchestras across the island to make up the shortfall.
“We are partnering with the pan association in adapting more of a policy to have the bands assist the schools with instruments. We would have done that in the past where the schools directly could have gone to some of the bands, but now what we are doing is to bring the pan association back into whole planning and production. They have committed to assisting the schools with the instruments,” he revealed.
The students too are doing their part to prepare for the night of the competition.
Representatives of two schools which have won the competition in previous years shared their optimism during Sunday’s Session in Steel with Sam Roberts.
Arial Jeremiah, who is a first-time arranger for the Antigua Girls’ High School (AGHS), explained that it has been a bit challenging for her, but a challenge she welcomes.
“It’s been going pretty good, it’s different writing music for a steel band, but it’s a good challenge. Whereas I have arranged music for a steel band in a college setting, I guess I don’t have much to think about. I am just writing the music for fun, but in terms of writing the music for a competition I have things that I know I have to do to execute and so on,” Jeremiah said.
Preparations have already begun, according to Jeremiah, and are going smoothly. The ladies in blue will be playing an arrangement of the song ‘This party on fire’.
Competitors from the Clare Hall Secondary expressed similar sentiments.
Competing along with these two secondary schools will be Princess Margaret School (PMS), Ottos Comprehensive and Antigua Grammar School (AGS).
While in the primary division, Pigotts Primary, Nelvie N Gore Primary, T N Kirnon and Villa primary will compete.
They will be competing with the song ‘How me sound’ by Lyrics Man.
