St. Lucia, W.I. - After two years of no official Panorama activity in St. Lucia due to COVID-19, the competition stage at the SAB in Castries came alive with four bands taking on defending champions Babonneau Steel Orchestra. The band, led musically by resident arranger Allison Marquis retained their crown scoring 271 playing “Carnal Knowledge” by De Invader, and coming in one point ahead of their nearest challenger, Pantime Steel Orchestra. Past champions themselves, Pantime performed Amrit Samaroo’s arrangement of Teddyson John’s “Sweet Soca Music.”
The evening officially got underway around 8:15 p.m. with the national anthem. Laborie Steel Pan was first on stage, starting up with their ‘warm-up tune’ - a standard feature at St. Lucia Panorama competitions where orchestras perform a piece of about three minutes - getting their musical juices flowing before diving into the official Panorama selection or ‘test tune.’ Under the bright lights of the venue, the lively, mainly teenaged players wearing white pants and colorful tie-dyed T-Shirts (a few even managed matching socks!) served up “Cyah Wait” by Alpha arranged by Andrius Edwide. Two moko-jumbies and dancers added to the band’s presentation, which ended with exuberant shouts around 8:51 p.m. after an energy-filled performance.
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