WHAT does it take to beat a Naps Girls choir? Another Naps Girls choir!

A large and keen audience on Tuesday filled Naparima Bowl, San Fernando to three-quarters capacity to soak up the second day of the south-central Trinidad leg of the 2024 Trinidad and Tobago Music Festival. Younger pupils - from primary school level and lower secondary school - shone as solos, duets and choirs.

Despite all entrants in each class singing the same test piece, they did so with great gusto, amid varying levels of execution.

After pupils each performed their solos of The Cupboard, adjudicator Nadine Gonzales invited all on stage to sing together, to the audience's delight.

Likewise she asked all choir members, wherever seated in the auditorium, to jointly sing their test piece, with a message of collaboration amid competition.

Four large school choirs of 30-40 pupils contested the under-15 junior choir class, plus a small choir from newcomers Oak Preparatory Private School.

They sang the uplifting song, The World Is A Rainbow by Greg Sclesa.

Naparima Girls High School Junior Choir A gave a performance that was out of this world. A divine blend of fresh, clear, young voices.

"Now you be you and I'll be me," they sang, a blend of voices creating waves of musical swells. Oh such sweetness!

Naps Girls Choir B came on next, with slightly older girls. While choir A had offered in the musical freshness of their young years, the voices of choir B pupils were slightly heavier and stronger.

"The world is a rainbow," choir B sang, each pupil waving her arm overhead in a big arc.

Naparima College offered the rare sight of a boys choir, of many junior school pupils, to their credit, varied types of voice singing in unison.

Two primary schools also vied. Anstey Memorial Girls Anglican opened the class with its very large choir, and Oak School closed the class with about 20 pupils.

Adjudicator Nadine Gonzales awarded in order Naps Girls B choir 90 marks out of 100 (winners), Naps Girls A choir 88, Anstey 78, Naparima College 72, and Oak 70.

She praised the schools' music teachers for their hard work to gather many different voices into a choir, amid the competing demands of school work.

"I must say the competition in south is very strong," she remarked.

Gonzales praised Oak for a very good effort. "You needed a more unified tone at times. The blend was fair, not a good blend but a very, very good effort.

"A more rounded tone needed overall."

[caption id="attachment_1068615" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Naparima Girls' High School Jn Choir (A) which was beaten into second place by Naps Girls Choir (B) on Tuesday during the Music Festival at the Naparima Bowl. - Photo by Angelo Marcelle[/caption]

Naparima College had made a "really good effort", she said. "A more rounded tone needed at times. More expression needed. It was good for the most part.

"A little more shape needed for the phrases but a very good effort."

She said Anstey school had "very good potential," but could aim for more rounded voices.