New York, USA - For this Spring Steel Orchestra concert, When Steel Talks (WST) is in one of the iconic quarters of Gotham City - the beautiful Frederick Loewe Theatre on the NYU (New York University) campus. NYU Steel is about to have its final performance of the semester as part of the NYU Music and Performance Arts Professions Spring 2012 events.

....They opened up with the legendary Len “Boogsie” Sharpe’s “Shaw Park;” then they dropped a Chopin piece “Prelude and Fugue” - following that up with the world premiere of “Kids,” a piece commissioned and written for NYU Steel by Payton MacDonald. And the audience roared. They dropped another “Boogsie” piece, the moving and emotional “Cryin” - followed by a duet of the great Lord Kitchener’s “Pan in ‘A’ Minor” performed by Murray Mast and Josh Quillen.
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Trinidad, USA - Trinidad and Tobago International Conference on the Steelpan - Conference Programme
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Global - Shawn and Sherwin Thwaites continue to spread the voice of the steelpan instrument throughout the world. The brothers recently toured the UK with Native Deen promoting the latter's third album "The Remedy."
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Brooklyn, New York, USA - The West Indian American Day Carnival has a news President.

He is WIADCA stalwart, Thomas “Tom” Bailey who will replace Yolanda Lezama-Clarke in the post. Lezama-Clarke, the daughter of the event’s founder, Carlos Lezama, recently resigned.

“The organization’s membership has spoken. I am honored and humbled to become the third individual to lead this important group that is the lawful custodian of the annual Labor Day Carnival Festival. The new WIADCA TEAM is committed to the preservation of our culture and to move the organization forward in a new and positive direction,” Bailey said.

He added the new WIADCA team has already met with both Mas and Steel bands and presented them with checks that were won at the 2011 competitions.
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Oskaloosa, Iowa, USA - “Stan the Pan Man” and members of the Central College Flying Pans taught students at SIEDA Head Start about Caribbean music Tuesday morning.

Stan Dahl is an assistant professor of music at Central College and he leads the Flying Pans steel drum band. He brought about a half dozen Central students with him to Head Start as part of a Central College community service day. The college students performed music for the children and assisted in the classroom.
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Maryland, USA - If variety is the spice of life, then Sunday's chamber concert to benefit the Judith Lloyd Famous Scholarship Fund should be spicy indeed.

Members and guests of the Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra present a program beginning with chamber music by Debussy, Mozart, Glazunov and Mendelssohn and ending with steel drums. In between, a group of cellos and another of trombones play up a storm.

The concert begins at 3 p.m. at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, 1200 Churchville Road in Bel Air.

....The rest of the program belongs to Steel Pandemic, a steel drum band organized by SSO flutist Doris "Dolly" Reinhardt. They play an arrangement of Richard Strauss' "Thus Spake Zarathrustra," followed by Fabulos Sync's "You Safe" and Bach's "Air on the G String." The program ends with a lively composition by Doris Reinhardt's son, Tim, who directs the Harford Strings Orchestra. It's called "Toca Como Loco," which translates to "Play Like Crazy."

Spicy enough for a Sunday afternoon?
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Global - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (right) tries his hand at a steelpan drum alongside professional Curt Rogers, during the recording of a video message for the upcoming Steelpan Festival in Trinidad and Tobago. Mr. Ban described the typical Trinidadian music as a force for peace and “part of the global heritage of humankind”.
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Maryland, USA - Join Pan Masters Steel Orchestra (PMSO) on Sunday May 27^th for an evening of treasured music on The Steel Pan by some of the top bands on the east coast. The lime starts at 2:00 p.m. The venue will complement a traditional outdoor setting for Pan music lovers and enthusiasts along with food, craft and live entertainment until 10:00 p.m.
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Kingstown, St. Vincent, W.I. - Head of the Youlou Pan Movement (YPM) Warren 'Boomy' Knights is hoping for a greater presence of steel pan in Carnival 2012, not only at the Victoria Park but elsewhere throughout the island at Carnival activities.

On Tuesday April 17th, Knights said that 2012 marks the beginning of a new era characterized by increase collaboration between the Carnival Development Corporation (CDC) and YPM.

"In addition to junior and senior panorama our presence and involvement will come in the Miss St. Vincent and the Grenadines pageant, J'ouvert, the rural Carnivals and other pre carnival activities", said Knights.

He also revealed that the Senior Panorama scheduled for Thursday July 5th has attracted the participation of seven steel orchestras. Senior Panorama is usually held on the same night as the Mas Bands Section of the Year competition in a show dubbed Steel and Glitter.
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Guyana, SA - Rudy Bishop born on February 6, 1945, shares the same birthday with the greatest reggae legend in history, Jamaican Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley, is a musical visionary in his own right.

When the Skylarks, a Kitty-based band managed by Bishop, split up after performing during the May 26, 1966 Independence celebrations, some members decided to form another band. Bishop says the band Skylarks broke up because his main aim was to play the classical music - the music of the masters. “The guys had a falling out and we said we wanted to do something more sophisticated. Pan Am North Stars had just collaborated with Winifred Atwell to produce Ivory and Steel, a mixture of piano and steel pan music. That is what I wanted to do to capture the atmosphere of blending classical music with the modern music”. He noted that the steelpan has the distinction of being the only music invented in the 20th century.

Bishop is credited with the new band’s name. Since the band which practised on the seawall with the sound of the ocean in the background, was concentrating on playing symphonies he suggested that the band be named `The Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’. The name stuck.

....In 1980, the Orchestra was invited to tour the USSR and participated in the Tchaikovsky Festival in Moscow. They continued to dazzle audiences at other performances in Kiev, Lenin Grad and other cities before moving on to the New London Theatre in England...
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Alabama, USA - Unity students got a real taste of the source waters for steel drumming when they performed at the first annual Southeast Steel Band Carnival Saturday April 14^th. This was the renaissance concert event for Alabama’s famed Montieth Ampitheatre, inside the now de-commissioned Fort McClellan army base. This venue once entertained soldiers of our greatest generation with such notable celebrities as Bob Hope and Marlene Dietrich. Saturday, the piney hills of Alabama reverberated with the unmistakable melodies of Calypso played on authentic 55 gallon steel drums by experts from Georgia, Alabama, and beyond.

The “Lions of Steel” were on hand by a personal invitation of the host, Tony McCutchins, Professor, Emeritus of the Percussion Department of the University of Georgia and now Director of Percussion at Jacksonville State University; JSU, as many local band students already know, is the power-house marching outfit in the region.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Pan Trinbago’s revenue from Carnival 2012 has doubled to $5 million. The increased earning was generated from the party held on the Greens, Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain during the Panorama semi-finals on February 5.

....Speaking to the media after a Joint Select Committee (JSC) meeting held at J Hamilton Maurice Room, Tower D, International Waterfront Centre, NCC Chief Executive Officer Clarence Moe said, “Panorama moved from about $2.5 million to about $5 million.”

....“Young people have been returning to pan and why? They can listen to the big bands and still have a good time. Whereas we would have 7,000 coming in, we have 15,000. What do I do about that? Between the purists who say no party and those who want to hear some pan and enjoy themselves also, that is the challenge.”
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St. Vincent & The Grenadines, W.I. - The Pan against Crime (PAC) community concerts will continue this weekend in New Grounds. The PAC is busy putting last minute plans in place for the concert scheduled for the New Grounds Primary School Hard-court on Sunday April 22nd at 4:30 pm.

This community concert is being staged as part of the 4 year anniversary of the PAC Programme, and will feature the New Dimensions Steel Orchestra of New Grounds and the Mustique Charitable Trust Georgetown Steel Orchestra.
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Illinois, USA - Western Illinois University's Steel Band, led by Director of Percussion Studies Rick Kurasz, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 27 in the College of Fine Arts and Communication (COFAC) Recital Hall.

The Steel Band will be joined by guest artists Ricardo Flores, associate professor of percussion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Christopher Hanning, West Chester University of Pennsylvania associate professor of percussion. The program will include: "Take a Wine" and "Ray's Medley" by Ray Holman; "Sing a Song of Song" by Kenny Garrett; "Soca Tatie" by Byron Lee; "Roundabout Ways" by Tom Miller; "El Montuno" by Pierre Beluse; "Suburban Baião" by Kurasz; "Soul Sauce" by Chano Pozo; "Betty's Eyes" by Don Prorak; "Etude #6" by Philip Glass; "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars; and "Confusion Reggae" by Cliff Alexis.
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Global - In honor of this weekend’s most auspicious collision of Record Store Day and Earth Day, Saturday and Sunday respectively, I decided to reprise a story about where environmentalism meets record collecting, which as it happens is also the most-read article here...The Day Van Dyke Parks Went Calypso, originally appeared in the pages of Crawdaddy! in 2009, 40 years after the Santa Barbara oil spill and the birth of the environmental movement, and upon the occasion of the re-reissue of Parks’ long out-of-print productions for calypso artists, the Esso Trinidad Steel Band, and the Mighty Sparrow. Parks had a goal and an idea ahead of its time: To forge environmental healing through music made by instruments made of cast-off oil drums. The story further explains one man’s adventures in art and activism...

....Surely younger folks could identify with the calypsonian struggle, more than say, Liberace’s audience in Las Vegas, which is where Parks found the Esso Trinidad Tripoli Steel band working in the late ’60s. “I saw them as enslaved in their relationship to Liberace; I thought it was a vulgarity. I wanted to save them from their trivialization.”
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Maine, USA - The 22^nd annual Pan NE Steelband Festival will be held Sunday, May 6, starting at 10 a.m. under the tent in front of the Sugarloaf Inn.

Among the bands from throughout New England that will play are the Western Mountain Trash Can Band and students in the MSAD 58 steel drum program.

Organizers urge attendees to dress for an outdoor performance and to bring lawn chairs or blankets.

If it rains, the festival will be held at the Carrabassett Valley Anti-Gravity Center.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - It is good that school doors are being opened up to the great variety of musical instruments available to our children. For too long they have been locked out by a curriculum that still refuses to recognise the validity of so much that is of such importance to us as a people.

But as we make way for the Indian dholak, the African djembe, the Chinese chaozhou dagu, the Syrian darbuka, in addition to the European violin and piano and the American trap set and whatever else, let us remember the special gift of the steelpan that is truly and completely ours to embrace, to understand, to develop, to promote and to represent to the world.

There is a worrying sub-text to the government's argument for elbowing aside the Pan-in-the-Classroom Unit in making room for the new and expanded Multicultural Music Programme Unit. Underlying the case is a view that the steelpan is merely one of the broad range of ethnic instruments of our multi-cultural society. The view is based on the false notion that the steelpan is an African instrument, as the dholak is an Indian instrument and so on. It is not.
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Delaware, USA - The campus community will have an opportunity to enjoy the sounds of the Caribbean when the fourth annual University of Delaware Steel Band Festival is held from noon to 6 p.m., Saturday, April 28, on the lawn between the Amy E. du Pont Music Building and the Roselle Center for the Arts in Newark.

All daytime activities are free.

In conjunction with the UD Steel Band Festival, two concerts are scheduled -- the first at 8 p.m., Friday, April 27, at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington and the second at 8 p.m., Saturday, April 28, in the Loudis Recital Hall of the Amy E. du Pont Music Building.

Steel pan artist Liam Teague, hailed as a prodigy in his native Trinidad and Tobago, will be featured. Also performing will be the UD Faculty Jazz and the Delaware Steel ensembles.
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West Virginia, USA - West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts held its World Music Showcase Concert Thursday.

The Steel Band and African Music Ensemble made the CAC come alive with songs that were both patriotic and culturally diverse.

The Steel Band, consisting primarily of drum arrangements, started off the show with the national anthem and then immediately dove into their repertoire of songs. The next piece, "Suzie," was a fun and upbeat collaboration of sounds that lit the Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre with a feeling of almost child-like enthusiasm from the performers and audience alike.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Pan Trinbago is excited to announce Pazzaz - Pan Jazz Escapade.

Pazzaz, a component of the Tobago Jazz Experience, is set to take place on Saturday 28^th April 2012 at Pigeon Point Heritage Park, Tobago. Staring time is 7:30 p.m. and tickets are priced at TT$200.00.

This year’s fest will feature more than 150 musicians comprising some of the twin-island’s top steelbands.

....Patrons can expect a mix of jazz, pop and calypso.
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Princeton, New Jersey, USA - It’s intense, yet relaxed; the familiarity of the players in the practice room in the Woolworth Music Center, just next door to Princeton’s Frist Campus Center, is a study in easy-going yet professional camaraderie. Striving for perfection in preparation for the weekend’s performances - the Foundry Ensemble led by steel pan and percussive phenom Andy Akiho - went through selections in the repertoire to be showcased later that Friday evening at the Infini-T Café on Hullfish Street on the University Campus, and on Saturday at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
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DeKalb, Illinois, USA - NIU (Northern Illinois University) Steelband, under the direction of Liam Teague and Cliff Alexis, presents its spring 2012 concert on Sunday April 22 at 3:00 p.m. in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall, NIU School of Music.

The concert will feature guest artist the Jonathan Scales Fourchestra. Steel panist and virtuoso composer, Jonathan Scales, formed his ‘Fourchestra’ in 2007 as a means to deliver his musically complex, but somehow accessible ideas to anyone willing to listen.
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Princeton, New Jersey, USA - On a cool and crisp spring Friday evening, When Steel Talks (WST) finds itself at the prestigious Princeton University to catch up with the young gifted panist, performing artist, composer and educator Andy Akiho. Andy is currently a PhD candidate at Princeton University where he is pursuing his doctorate in composition.

WST is on hand to take in a performance by Andy and his group—the Foundry Ensemble—at the Infini-T Café on the Princeton University campus, preceding his big gig at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. the following evening. Besides Andy on tenor Pan, his band is made up of some stellar musicians in their own right - Vicky Chow (piano), Ian Rosenbaum (vibes), Mariel Roberts (cello), Kenneth Salters (drummer) and Samuel Adams (bass).
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - The steelband fraternity yesterday came out to the St Finbar's RC Church in Morne Coco Road, Diego Martin, to bid farewell to founding member of the Silver Stars Steel Orchestra Junior Edgar Francis Pouchet.

Pouchet passed away on March 24 in his sleep at his home in Orlando, Florida, USA. He was 75. His family brought his body here for the funeral service, which was followed by cremation at the Cinerary, Long Circular Road, St James.

President of Pan Trinbago Keith Diaz spoke at the funeral, saying Pouchet served the steelband movement well for decades and at the highest levels. Diaz said he found out recently that Pouchet would do arrangements for steelbands free of charge.

"I have had the good fortune to communicate with several leaders who have testimony that Junior Pouchet had done musical arrangements for their bands free of charge. In fact, it seems that Junior always felt compelled to give of his talents and skill so that less fortunate bands could progress," said Diaz.
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Global - The funeral service of Edgar “Junior” Pouchet will take place at St. Finbar’s Roman Catholic Church, Morne Coco Road, Diego Martin, at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday 4th April followed by cremation at the St. James Cinerary, Long Circular Road in St. James, Trinidad, at 2:30 p.m.

Pouchet was a Past President of the National Association of Trinidad & Tobago Steelbandsmen, as the Pan body was known in the earlier days.

“Junior”—as he was fondly known—passed away in Orlando, Florida last week.
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