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Mr. Mike Murray, Producer of Barbados Pan Festival and Mrs. Ernestine Rawlins, Acting Director of Culture, while visiting the Government Press. |
Charlestown Nevis (February 22, 2005) Acting Director of Culture, Mrs. Ernestine Rawlins says that the Shell All Stars Steel Orchestra has been selected to participate in the 2005 Barbados Pan Festival slated to take place on May 28th 2005.
She was at the time accompanying the Producer of the Barbados Pan Festival, Mr. Mike Murray to the government press, during his one-day promotional visit to the island. She told the press that the Shell All Stars had given a positive response to the idea, but the final details are being worked out.
The Barbados Pan Festival which is in its 7th year is a two-day event where the top steel orchestras from across the Caribbean as well as individual pan players participate in the competition, which is held at different historic venues yearly in Barbados.
Mr. Murray told the press that his main reason for visiting the island was to invite a steel orchestra from the island to participate in this years competition. He added, This year we are having a new element, in that we are having a Caribbean seven aside competition.
While observing that the competition usually gets a good response, Murray noted that the organization had gone to other Caribbean countries to bring orchestras to Barbados, adding, to expose the islands in terms of the quality of pan players that they have .
He noted that Nevis was one of the islands that the organization had identified. He said, So far we have had groups from Antigua, St. Lucia and Grenada coming to Barbados to participate other than Trinidadian groups.
Mr. Murray in expressing that the competition is of high standard, he outlined some of the well known top orchestras and their leaders who are scheduled to participate in the event. He also expressed that the Caribbean competition element will bring groups as far as Nevis, Dominica, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Grenada and Trinidad again.
The competition has a cash prize of Bds$5000.00 for the first place, Bds$2000.00 for the second place and Bds$1000.00 for the third place winner.
