When old oil drums talk

Apr 19, 2009 News

---

…and what was not music for the Guyana Music Festival

By Neil Marks
There is a certain twinkle in the eyes of David Dewar, and you can be certain it has nothing to do with the turnout or the interest of the business community in the Guyana Music Festival.
It is difficult to determine if public support for the festival or the lack of sponsorship was poorer, but Dewar pays no mind.
So what if his budget was over $2 million, and he couldn’t get a quarter of that sponsorship at the start of the last day of the weeklong festival?
“Have you seen some of the performances,” he asks, almost urging me to get in the auditorium of the Bishops’ High School in Georgetown.
I’m about to discover some more of what’s so exciting about Dewar’s demeanour. It’s Friday. Thursday’s sessions had to be rammed into the day’s schedule because the heavy rains in Georgetown washed out Thursday’s classes.

The announcer calls on the competitors of Class 20, Piano Forte under 12 years, to standby. It should have been Secondary School Choirs now, but because of the confusion with packing two day’s classes into one, no one grumbled.
But then, another announcement: the day’s programme would start with Class 52: Steel Band (Schools).
Steelpans (still made in Guyana from old oil drums) painted red are lined across the stage. To the left of the auditorium, bronze steelpans, also mostly of double tenor, are also lined out. No other sets are around.
The competition begins in earnest. Once you hear the name “North Ruimveldt Multilateral School” you know it’s going to be good.

The school’s band has always pandered towards a sense of dedication that makes their compositions and execution brilliant. This time around, they did the same thing.
Since there was no test piece to perform, they chose to perform that endearing folk song “Sitira Gal” (One day, meh bin a bamboo dam…) and there is no doubt they will master it.
Once the young pannists struck their rubber-knobbed sticks to the pan, you feel the sweet, distinct sound of genuine steelpan music, with all the capacity that it provides for lifting the spirit and spurring one into a sort of calypso carnival mood.

The height of their harmonic erudition could not be easily compared to their lone competitor – the Bishops’ High School – whose ensemble suffered harmonic tension and failed to provide anything “different” when they sought to transition between the tingling rhythms of Calypso to the ardent strides of March.
The lads of North Ruimveldt were completely fixed to the task at hand, and their blend ranged from highly complex chord progressions to long flowing melodic arcs.
However, the music did not lose mood of the naughty song while preserving the integrity of the artform by punctuating the melody with masterful notes at critical junctures.
So gripped in the presentation they were, that the group of pannists went over time; even an announcement and the ringing of the bell could not stop them, until one of the adjudicators went up and tugged at the composer’s trousers.

They were penalized for going over time, but that did not stop them from being rewarded with the first prize. Such was the energy of the performances that lends itself to Dewar’s exuberance.
He supposes that the lack of public support for the Festival had to do with the fact that classical music is not popular with many, but he is quick to point out that every genre of music has its basis in classical music.
He proffers that while the Festival allows limited exposure, one can never tell where performances at this Festival could leave the competitors. To illustrate his point, Dewar points to the fact that one of the Festival’s past competitors, Frank Daniels, sings professionally with the Chicago Opera, and in fact is rated as one of the favourites in American comic opera.

Of course, Dewar points out that the amount of competitors this year was not as many as when the Festival started way back in 1952. But, of course, there were many more music teachers then!
The Festival was held regularly from 1953-1973 and was later moved on to be part of Guyfesta. Efforts to revive the Festival were made in 1994 and again in 1997, but were never followed through.
However, when Dr Erv Janseen, the Coordinator of the Music Education Programme of Partners in Mission with the Evangelical Lutheran Church learnt of the Guyana Music Teachers’ Association, the idea of a revival of the music festival was born. The Lutheran Church sponsored the visit of Americans Donald Ryan and Marilynda Lynch, the Festival’s main adjudicators.

For Dewar, the Festival achieved its objectives of getting amateur musicians to showcase their talent before professionals and their peers and he will leave the end result to time.
And so, even if the Festival did not attract widespread public or corporate support, Dewar is not worried and is looking forward to another Guyana Music Festival in two years.

---

---