BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - WINISTON 'ZACK' NISBETT has successfully completed his 7th annual Instruments Workshop.
The Fife, Banjos, Quatro and Guitar Workshop came to a triumphant end on Saturday (Aug. 24) with a closing ceremony held at The Palace (formerly Cloud 9).
The ceremony began with the students, fitted with the various instruments, playing the National Anthem.
Each student was presented with Certificates of Participation in the presence of their parents, other family members and friends.
They were each given the opportunity to further display what they learned during the four-week Workshop.
They each played a sample of various songs, stunning everyone in attendance with their newly-acquired skills. Some children had left the audience in a state of shock when they showed off their ability to properly play up to three instruments.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education Ionie Liburd-Willet spoke briefly at the event, encouraging the children to continue working hard to better themselves in playing those instruments.
"Dream big and continue to make us proud of you. Continue learning to play your instruments well. Practice every day, if not after you have done your homework or even between breaks. It will pay off in the next couple of years and we will be looking at you on the television...," she told the children.
She also commended Nisbett for a job well done in putting on the workshop every year.
"The Ministry of Education is pleased to be associated with Mr. Nisbett's life passion of passing on our cultural heritage to our young people," she said.
Also speaking at the closing ceremony was former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sports Lloyd Lazaar, who commended the children on paying keen attention while at the Workshop.
Lazaar said he had had the opportunity to observe them during the Workshop and that he was "quite impressed and quite pleased to see the level of self-confidence, the ability to support each other, the kindness that you displayed to each other, and I thought that that was extremely helpful and extremely essential".
Robert 'Bobby' Martin was highly commended by both speakers for the work he did with the students over the four-week period.
At the end of the ceremony, attendees gathered around a number of the students as well as Nisbet and Martin who entertained them for over half an hour, playing various songs including Old Rugged Cross, Yellow Bird and a number of 'golden oldies'.
The Delisle Walwyn-sponsored Workshop began on July 29 with some 40 children learning about and how to play the Guitar, Quatro, Fife, the Tenor Banjo and the Ukulele Banjo.
