Sion Hill Euphonium holds graduation ceremony

Twenty-nine students recently graduated from the Sion Hill Euphonium summer training programme.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony at Sion Hill on Sunday, chair of the Sion Hill Euphonium Warren Knights noted that the programme requires discipline, hard work and commitment.{{more}}

Knights said that this was the 21st year of the training programme and the 14th graduation ceremony of its kind.

While the Sion Hill Steel Euphonium have been in winners row seven of the last eight times they competed, he said that it wasn’t always this way.

“This band has suffered 27 years of losing before we won our first Senior Panorama in 2009. We endured all the ridicule, booing, heckling and belittling, sometimes even by our own villagers; but we persevered.”

Knights also pointed out that it is the investment in the youth which has brought them into winner’s row.

The steel orchestra chair noted that 99 per cent of the band’s members have been a part of the training programme.

“During this period approximately 800 persons were trained to play the steel pan as part of a community effort to combat crime and violence, also to create an alternative for the youths of the Sion Hill community.”

Knights encouraged the parents to continue to send their children to practice, not only for participation for Junior Panorama, but also for the participants to develop their skills.

Also speaking at the graduation ceremony, area representative Arnhim Eustace stated that he gets a sense of pride when organizations, without urging, do work to improve their communities.

“I ask you to continue to do that work for all the time. There is no let up when you set your sights to improve your community and your nation and you have demonstrated for 21 years that you can hold this particular training course….”

He said that he knows the lives of the participants are better after going through the course.

“I am sure that the lives of those 800 persons who are trained under this programme, they are the better for it and because of that the community is the better for it and because of that St Vincent and the Grenadines is the better for it,” Eustace said.

He noted that there is no pan side in SVG with a track record like the Sion Hill Euphonium.

Luke Browne, Minister of Health and the Unity Labour Party’s caretaker for the constituency, noted that the organization is going from strength to strength.

He stated that he is appreciative of the relationship which he has been able to forge with the pan side. Browne pointed out that while the organization started in 1981, the movement to get the pan side started began in 1978.

He noted that while there were setbacks when the pan side began, they continued in earnest to do their best and work hard at pan music.

Browne also encouraged the participants to take it up a notch to pursue excellence and renew vigour and focus in all areas of life.

Tillal Webb, captain of the steel orchestra and trainer for the summer programme, said that it was quite difficult to get through the training programme because of the young age of the participants.

Webb noted that some of the children he trained in this year’s programme were children of past participants.

Remarks were also made by Senator Julian Francis and veteran pan player, arranger and tuner Francis ‘Pes’ Llewelyn.(CM)