Hard work and determination paid off for the St. Augustine Junior Steel Orchestra when they won their ninth National Junior Panaroma title at the Queen's Park Savannah yesterday.

The band, which has 65 members, outplayed the competition including defending champs BP Renegades Youth Steel Orchestra with their rendition of Pan by Storm.

The journey to victory in the Under-21 category required long hours of sacrifice from all the students in the band. Many of them opted to take some much needed rest today and did not attend school.

The leader of the orchestra 19-year-old, Stefon Pierre told The Student Press that he and his players were happy with their victory. He said winning was the reward for their dedication.

"When school finish we would head straight to practice it wasn't easy ... at times, we had to stay back late. We had to work along with the arranger as he made adjustments to the music,"  Pierre said.

Time was not the only sacrifice that had to be made.

According to the band's manager Andre Moses, the $27,000 the school won yesterday is not enough to cover the band's expenses and hopes those in charge will increase the monies allocated to the event.

Winning the first prize though was not the main reason for entering the competition.

"I want students to be able to go out and make an impact on the pan industry, there is so much to learn about it. They should be able to learn about the whole economics and socioeconomics of pan, and this will be part of preparing them to enter the industry," Moses said.

"It should not just be about them coming to learn a tune."

He said the school's impressive record was due to the support they received from the school community. He also expressed gratitude to the senior band Exodus for allowing the school to use their instruments.

Moses, who is also the vice-principal of the school, said the school's music programme is 30 years old and as such they are now able to benefit from past pupils like Kern Summerville, the band's current arranger.

"We have a lot of past pupils that are doing well and they went through our music programme and our steel pan programme ... five or six of them teaching music in secondary schools, and some are doing music in university," he said.

Moses said he wants his school to set the standard for excellence in pan. He is working on creating a more structured music programme at the school which will continue to expose students to the national instrument.

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