A celebration of music and community at Labour & Steel 7

SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

In the bustling town and ur­ban com­mu­ni­ty of San Juan, 11A San­ta Cruz Old Road will come alive to­day from 6 pm, when the gates of Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra’s (Pam­beri) pa­n­yard open for the sev­enth stag­ing of Labour & Steel.

The care­ful­ly cu­rat­ed event pays trib­ute to in­di­vid­u­als whose con­tri­bu­tions have not on­ly mean­ing­ful­ly im­pact­ed the steel­band move­ment and cul­tur­al land­scape, but al­so com­mu­ni­ties across var­i­ous sec­tors of so­ci­ety.

Con­cep­tu­alised by Pam­beri, this sev­enth in­stal­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant to the or­gan­i­sa­tion. While it cel­e­brates oth­ers, it al­so marks its 46th an­niver­sary, a mile­stone that en­cap­su­lates pro­found growth, wis­dom, and an en­dur­ing love for cul­ture, labour, hu­man­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment. “It’s a cel­e­bra­tion of ex­cel­lence through mu­sic and com­mu­ni­ty.”

Co­or­di­na­tors are man­ag­er An­dre Moses, cap­tain Dwayne Cadore, mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Bri­an Vil­lafana, arranger Cheo Cato and sec­re­tary Lana Richard­son.

Pam­beri re­mains one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most re­spect­ed steel­bands. The pride of San Juan has built a rep­u­ta­tion for re­silience, in­no­va­tion and mu­si­cal orig­i­nal­i­ty. Over the decades, it has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed a com­mit­ment to high stan­dards of mu­si­cian­ship and qual­i­ty per­for­mances, both na­tion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, de­spite fi­nan­cial lim­i­ta­tions.

In 2018, Pam­beri suc­cess­ful­ly host­ed the in­au­gur­al edi­tion of Labour & Steel, which led to fur­ther edi­tions in 2019, a vir­tu­al pre­sen­ta­tion in 2020 dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, and an­nu­al stag­ings from 2023 to 2025. The event has con­tin­u­ous­ly grown in stature and promi­nence, qual­i­fy­ing as a sig­na­ture fix­ture on the cul­tur­al cal­en­dar.

The con­cept draws in­spi­ra­tion from the spir­it of recog­ni­tion as­so­ci­at­ed with Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions, ho­n­our­ing in­di­vid­u­als whose ded­i­ca­tion and ser­vice have made a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence. Through the pow­er­ful medi­um of steel­band mu­sic, Pam­beri cel­e­brates these out­stand­ing cit­i­zens—hence the fit­ting ti­tle, Labour & Steel. In ad­di­tion to recog­nis­ing ex­cel­lence, the event serves as an im­por­tant fundrais­ing ini­tia­tive to as­sist with the or­ches­tra’s an­nu­al op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es and de­vel­op­men­tal pro­grammes.

Promised for to­day is an evening of out­stand­ing mu­si­cal en­ter­tain­ment fea­tur­ing an im­pres­sive line-up of steel­band tal­ent from pow­er­house per­form­ers.

Card­ed from To­ba­go are five-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma Medi­um Band cham­pi­ons and reign­ing Pan Omega cham­pi­on Katzen­jam­mers; and from Trinidad, for­mer Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Siparia Del­tones, reign­ing Na­tion­al Panora­ma Large Band cham­pi­ons and cur­rent hat-trick hold­ers bp Rene­gades, and the ever-dy­nam­ic host band, Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra, three-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma Medi­um Band cham­pi­on and reign­ing third-place fin­ish­er.