Thirty- six young pannists were last Sunday, part of a new set of a cohort, who graduated from the annual Sion Hill Euphonium Steel Orchestra Inc. (SHESO) Summer Training Programme.
Each of the new pannists received a certificate at Sunday’s Graduation Ceremony, held at the Sion Hill Village Hard Court.
The graduates were part of a six-week programme conducted by Tillal Webb, Septimus Caine, Christopher Waldron and Mikalla Knights.
Divided into two training groups of twenty-three and thirteen, the graduates gave glimpses of their potentials as they performed with confidence and dexterity, belting out songs from different music genres learnt during the period of training.
This year’s training programme was again sponsored by the Mustique Charitable Trust, whose Administrative Director– Mrs Dularie Malcolm, in addressing the gathering, lauded the efforts of the SHESO.
She called on parents to appreciate the part children are playing in their own personal development saying, “I am sure there is a number of parents sitting there under the tent here today, would have sent your children to the programme without a full understanding of what they have accomplished during the past six weeks… As parents you have to appreciate that your children focus their time out from school”, Malcolm underscored.
She projected that “At this point, we don’t know, but sitting among the thirty-six graduants may be another superstar… We don’t know, it might be next year, it might be five years, but what we are doing here is we are trying to empower our children to enable them to grow up.” Complementing last Sunday’s Graduation Ceremony was the handing over of bursaries to students of the SHESO who were successful at the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment, and those going on to tertiary institutions.
The bursaries which were contributed by the Sion Hill Sports Club, were awarded to Kadeem Burton, Zoran Free, Phoebe Ferdinand, Crystal Blugh and Zephan Knights.
Sunday’s Graduation Ceremony was the twenty-sixth since the annual training programme started in 1995.
The SHESO is celebrating its fortieth year of existence.