By Joan Rampersad Friday, February 13 2009

Despite all the furore on Wednesday over the results of the Panorama semi-finals, President of Pan Trinbago, Patrick Arnold, yesterday insisted that all judges will remain the same for the final leg of competition in each category of the National Panorama 2009 Steelband competitions.

Following the results of the semi-final round of competition, especially in the large band category, a number of pannists expressed shock over the judging.

There was talk that the panel of judges may have been too old in their thinking where arrangement and improvisation were concerned, and that maybe it’s time to get a new set of judges. But Arnold said, “We always try to get the best we have from a list of about 40 people, who the bands themselves nominate, but some of them just refuse to do it. But in any event we can’t change the judges in midstream.”

It should also be noted that on yesterday’s Newsday where it was stated that Witco Desperadoes’ arranger Robbie Greenidge had reiterated a call for foreign judges, an error was made in that the key words “Last Year” were somehow omitted from the story.

When Newsday spoke with Greenidge on Wednesday, he specifically said that he wasn’t able to hear any of the other bands, so he could not comment on the judging of Sunday’s competition. His call for foreign judges was made after last year’s semi-final competition under similar grumbling among the pan fraternity.

Arnold was then asked about another set of grumbling following an early decision to limit big bands to 100 players, then a suggestion to revert to the 120-player limit and back to the 100 set for last Sunday’s semi-final He explained, “The bands were talking about it and were suggesting to go back to last year’s limit.

But when we held an Extraordinary General Meeting in our yard on February 4, they came out in their numbers against going back because players were already dropped from their bands, except for some of the big bands, about five out of the 16 big bands.