JESSEL MURRAY, conducts the newly-constituted National Steel Symphony Orchestra (NSSO) at its launch on Saturday evening at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain.

BY SEAN NERO

Celebrated pan arranger Len Boogsie Sharpe has criticised as an embarrassment to local culture the exclusion of calypso music from the repertoire of the Government’s new National Steel Symphony Orchestra (NSSO) when it was launched on Saturday night.

He expressed his dissatisfaction in a Guardian interview at the event, held at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain.

The launch took the form of a full-length concert featuring the NSSO, under the musical direction of Jessel Murray, exclusively on the Genesis pan. There was also a guest performance by the Festival Arts Chorale of the University of the West Indies’ Centre for Creative and Festival Arts.

Culture aficionados were aghast that there was no calypso in the NSSO’s performance.

They questioned how the music of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Andrew Lloyd Webber could take precedence over the compositions of the late grandmaster of calypso Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts), most of whose works were composed for the national musical instrument.

Fans of the Kitchener’s remembered his birthday on Friday, just one day before the launch of the NSSO.

Boogsie said: “That (calypso) should be part of the repertoire from its very start. That’s your culture! This is a great thing...the G-pan. It has a lot of notes like a complete instrument, but at the same time, this is a National (Steel) Symphony Orchestra. Lets say they go to Europe to play, being from the land of steelband and calypso and people say you all play some calypso music, what are they going to say? They don’t know it? They don’t know their own music?”

The NSSO was established at an initial cost of $850,000 with a recurrent cost of more than TT$9.5 million.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning unveiled the Government’s latest intervention into the procurement of this country’s indigenous art form.

He addressed a gathering which included President George Maxwell Richards and Mrs Richards, Pan Trinbago president Patrick Arnold, Culture Minister Marlene Mc Donald, members of the the Government, and the diplomatic corps.

Manning said the musicians attached to the NSSO had been given full-time employment and would receive monthly salaries as part of their professional status.

The Prime Minister assured the gathering that, “the orchestra would be the premiere steel orchestra in the world and the orchestra would have a repertoire that would involve a symphony repertoire, but also involving the music that is known to the steelbands in T&T.”

The Queen’s Hall audience grumbled about the absence of calypso during cocktails, but Boogsie was the only one brave enough to voice his disgust to the media.

While patrons lauded the decision of the NSSO management to premiere original works from young musicians Nigel Diaz, who is a member of the NSSO, as well as a musical work by Jit Samaroo, the audience felt distinct calypso music should not have been omitted from the programme which was supposed to feature all things national.

Referring to a recent concert performance in T&T by the University Singers from the UWI Mona, Jamaica campus, Boogsie recalled that the choir sang calypso music, but ensured that its repertoire was filled with Bob Marley’s reggae music.

Boogsie did praise the use of original works from Diaz, titled Programme Sonata and The Call of Steel.

In his view that decision would encourage more young pannists to compose and create music.

But he wanted officials of the symphony to promote a culture of musical patriotism among this crop of young pan music ambassadors.

“I enjoyed what went on here tonight. I enjoyed the symphony orchestra. It’s a good thing that the Prime Minister did, but you can’t leave out your own music,” Boogsie declared.