Young People Show Off Musical Talent at Marching Band Festival

Eight marching bands comprising more than 400 youth from several at-risk communities across the island showed off their musical talents at the third annual Marching Band Festival on Tuesday (May 23).

The Labour Day event, organised by the Lay Magistrates Association of Jamaica (LMAJ) St. James Chapter, was held at the Catherine Hall Stadium in St. James.

Scores of persons turned out to support their favourite bands at the event, which attracted participants from St. James, Trelawny and from as far away as Kingston and St. Catherine.

President of the LMAJ in St. James, Suzette Ramdanie-Linton, in bringing greetings, noted that the festival was the only one of its kind on the island and is “one avenue where we give back to our community”.

“We are touching the lives of at-risk youths across Jamaica. Performances will be band members from [communities] as far as Old Harbour Bay, Church Pen, Spanish Town, Central Kingston, Falmouth, Rose Heights, Tucker, Granville, Norwood, Salt Spring, Barrett Town [and] Farm Heights, just to name a few,” she informed.

The participating bands were each awarded $100,000 for their performances and as a reward for their hard work in preparing for the event.

“We reward our bands for their endless dedication, their weeks and months of training, working as a team on something that is positive, that is uplifting to their lives and the lives of others instead of getting involved in illicit and illegal activities. We don’t need any of that in our parish and in our country, so we are really happy to be working with our marching bands,” Mrs. Ramdanie-Linton said.

The festival, which was first held in 2018 and again in 2019, was on hold over the last three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.