Starlift Steel Orchestra, who also celebrated their fiftieth anniversary last year, is entering the competition with another Ray Holman composition in 2007 - 'We Just Can't Go on Like This.'  Ray is very happy to have pinned down Keith 'Designer' Prescott, his vocalist of choice for his 2007 music project.  In fact the arranger wrote two songs - the other is called 'You Were There,' which he says is a soca/R&B crossover piece.  Ray has entered Designer in Trinidad & Tobago's 'Groovy Soca Monarch' competition with the latter selection, and expects great things from the acclaimed veteran vocalist - "if he would get here [Trinidad]!", Ray half-laughingly, half-seriously exclaimed.  Designer is based in New York and is a driving force as lead vocalist for The Therapy Band.  When Steel Talks understands that Ray wrote the music and lyrics for both 'You Were There' and Starlift's panorama selection, though he admitted that the latter task [lyrics] was "painstaking work."  He described We Just Can't Go On Like This, as "kind of classy" and said "it sounds good on pan."

About eighty-five players practice nightly at the band's pan yard located in north-western Trinidad - at this juncture, a much healthier showing than last year.  Ray expects the orchestra to easily top the one-hundred player mark with more musicians due to arrive from abroad.  These will be in addition to those who will come aboard in the days leading up to the competition, such as pannists who played previously with other bands.  According to the arranger, the band membership is more confident than in 2006 (that's what third place in the finals will do for you).  Regarding the arrangement, only the ending remains to be put on, but even that, Ray notes, is critical and he expects to spend the remainder of his time 'tweaking' and sharpening up, adjusting as he listens to the piece come together with the orchestra, and paying attention to the pan musicians who will be 'falling in' in the days ahead.

There is a lot more to Ray Holman the musician, than panorama arranger.   He is a world-renowned musician and pannist in his own right, and travels around frequently during the year.   Ray is scheduled to leave Trinidad on March 26 and will be on tour around the USA in such places as Ohio, Baltimore, Denver, Tallahassee, Southern Mississippi and Iowa.  Additionally, he will accompany St. Joseph's Convent choir from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad on their trip to Germany, and possibly will be heading to Switzerland in June, though the latter has not been confirmed.  But even before that, and to drive the point home, mere days after panorama - from February 22-24 to be exact - Ray will showcase with his band in a concert that is just over two hours.  These are repeat performances of his highly-acclaimed shows at Trinidad's Little Carib Theatre back in November of '06, and an excellent way for pan enthusiasts to bring the curtains down on what would surely have been a phenomenal pan season; visitors to Trinidad & Tobago should plan to stay and take in at least one of the three nightly shows.

The February band line-up will almost mirror that of earlier November '06, which included vocalists Keith "Designer" Prescott and Ohio-based Tyler Rounds, flautist Mark Brewster, guitarist Lancelot Nichols, bassist Michael Germain, keyboardist Ron Aqui, drummer Joey Samuel and percussionist Errol Rahma.  The talented musician told When Steel Talks  that by popular demand, though not finalized, talks are ongoing to bring the show to the USA.

But for the next two weeks, the focus is different.  Ray will eat, sleep (well, maybe, not sleep!) and breathe nothing but 'Panorama' as he and his band Starlift Steel Orchestra, in their fifty-first year of existence, take their shot at Trinidad & Tobago's 2007 National Panorama championship title.