Taste of Steel 2019
First Citizens celebrates A Taste of Steel
The car park of the First Citizens Headquarters at the Queen’s Park Savannah transformed into an authentic lime when the Group hosted its third annual Corporate Carnival event called A Taste of Steel on Monday 18th February 2019.
A celebration of the Group’s unwavering commitment to this country’s culture and the arts, A Taste of Steel also reemphasizes the Group’s support of the First Citizens Supernovas Steel Orchestra. Straight off the heels of their qualification to the National Panorama Finals and led by the indomitable Amrit Samaroo, the First Citizens Supernovas displayed their eclectic repertoire of music, which had the audience dancing and crooning to some old-time calypso classics as well as the contemporary tracks currently on local airwaves.
One such song was Hookin Meh by Farmer Nappy, Supernovas’ selection for this year’s National Panorama Competition. To the delight of the audience, Farmer Nappy joined the band on stage and performed his 2019 hit and some other crowd favourites like Pavement and Mi Casa. Special performances by Swappi, music from the in-house DJ, live performances by the Laventille Rhythm Section also formed the evening’s programme, hosted by veteran calypsonian Llewellyn Mac Intosh better known as Short Pants.
Typically, A Taste of Steel fuses featured performances by the First Citizens Supernovas Steel Orchestra and an appropriate Corporate Social Responsibility initiative. In 2017, the music was merged with the launch of a historic Recipe Book while in 2018; the event featured the emerging artistic talent of work done by students of the Department of Creative and Festival Arts of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. For the 2019 edition, the Supernovas Steel Orchestra continued to be the main attraction along with a ‘taste’ of the traditional carnival characters courtesy of the Carnival Institute of Trinidad and Tobago.
Speaking at the event, Group CEO Karen Darbasie explained: “Over the years, characters would rise and drop in popularity, and although more modern, “bikini and bead” have overshadowed them, traditional characters still play an important role in our country’s Carnival celebrations.” Darbasie continued, “All of us at First Citizens are passionate about our culture in all forms and we are pleased to collaborate with the Carnival Institute of Trinidad and Tobago to feature some of the traditional characters and their costumes at our 2019 Taste of Steel event.”
Some of the characters featured at the event included the Baby Doll, Bookman, Dame Lorraine and the Pierrot Grennade.
