ALTHOUGH NOT every blade of grass or tile was covered, thousands of people turned out for the 'Saluting Our Youth' concert at Emancipation Park, New Kingston on Emancipation Day, August 1. The evening was brought to an enjoyable close by TO-ISIS who, for the first time that evening, seemed to have most of the audience, including those standing, riveted.
The group began their performance with Now That We Found Love before moving to two original pieces, Ghetto Pressure and Dream Weaver, both of which had the crowd screaming in delight.
They ended the set with a medley which began with a wonderfully melodic rendition of the 2002 carnival hit Turn Me On. As they cranked up the good vibrations for the evening, they instructed that the crowd grab something and wave. One member of the audience seemed to take this to mean grab anything and wave, hoisting a chair into the air in time to the music.
The concert featured largely performances in song, with a few dramatic pieces thrown in. As such, Saluting Our Youth would have benefitted from a greater variety in the nature of the pieces selected, especially since a large portion of the audience was standing and therefore less tolerant.
This was complicated by the reduced clarity of sound for that segment of the audience. The result was that the more dramatic choir pieces, which had the singers further from the microphone, could barely be heard toward the fringes of the audience.
PRIMARY STAGE
The concert is the first in the 'Summer in the Park' concert series. In keeping with the title, many of the performers are still in high school and a few are actually at the primary stage of their education. Additionally, many of the performers had won national trophies in the recently-concluded Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) Performing Arts competition.
The Glenmuir Festival Choir contributed three pieces to the evening. The group had placed first in the JCDC music competition, earning a total of nine trophies, including 'Most Outstanding Traditional Folk Song Performance' and 'Most Outstanding Female Choir'. They showed work from their folk and gospel repertoires, including Shout To The Lord and Win Di Sweepstakes.
A portion of the small dosage of poetry which helped the evening along also came from Glenmuir. Jermaine Nairne had earned the Louise Bennett Trophy for the 'Most Outstanding Dialect' piece in the speech competition. He delighted the audience with his performances of first Yuh Tink I Mad Miss and then King Street Palaver.
Vere Technical also delivered multiple performances with a gospel and a folk piece. In their first time to the stage the choir performed The Call and later returned to render Tief Tek Ova Town.
Two solo performances and a duet came from students of Lanaman's Preparatory. Karim Chang delivered the patriotic piece Jamaica My Pretty Island. His schoolmate, Daina Ashley-Abrahams, performed a solo and as part of a duet. For her solo piece she performed the folk piece Quatty-A-Yard, while she performed When Mi Roas Mi Yellow Yam with Marsha McLeod.
FESTIVAL ENTRY
The Calabar High School Choir also brought their festival entry to the evening with the traditional folk song about an old man who stupidly marries a much younger woman, Ah Zu Zu Wah.
The audience was also treated to the wonderful sounds of two brilliant sopranos, Carline Waugh and Ana Strachan. Strachan recently played the leading role in the Jamaica Junior Theatre's Scheherazade's Tale, where the power and quality of her voice astounded audiences.Waugh, another competitor in the JCDC Festival of the Performing Arts, had been dubbed the 'Most Outstanding Female Soloist'.
The evening also included performances by the Portmore Vision Choir and a dance solo by Adrian Wallace.
