Canefield, Dominica,
W.I.
–
Amanda’s mother, Gemma Lawrence, confesses to having
listened to a lot of Beethoven and other composers and
performers during her pregnancy sixteen years ago, and
attributes her daughter’s love affair with music to this
fact. The fifteen-year old Amanda, a Form Five student, is
currently studying for the Grade 6 level in music exams, and
not too long ago aced Grade 5 with a perfect score of 100,
never before achieved by anyone in the island of Dominica. To say that her parents are proud would be to state the
obvious.
Amanda is a student at Orion Academy located in Canfield,
Dominica, a secondary [high] school community in existence
for about five years. For the past two years, the
institution has been located in a building that was once a
nightclub. The classes are small in size and allow for
quality interaction between students and teachers. This is a
non-governmental school run by a board of seven trustees,
and operating under a unique initiative. This group of
individuals decided to meet head on and share in, the
responsibility of graduating students on the national level
who are, as they see it, better equipped to serve their
country. The school’s syllabus includes a variety of
different subjects, some not initially offered in the
regular government schools – such as music and civics. And
even though it is an ongoing financial challenge, through
the efforts of the board and with government assistance, the
school continues along its chosen path as a determined and
contributing educational institution.
Gemma Lawrence who is chairperson of the school, says that the
creative force behind Orion Academy, sprung from the opinion
that “students/citizens” were completing their
education in Dominica, but still “knew nothing about being
good citizens…[they] were just turning out being dependent
on the government,” and not being properly prepared for being
“good mothers, fathers…responsible members of society.” Orion Academy’s ultimate vision is to produce well–rounded
individuals who are ‘civic-minded,’ so the school remains a source of
potential wealth for the nation by grooming its boys and girls into
promising and competent youths. And Amanda is just one of
the products of the institution.
The young musician joined the Brizee’s Cultural Drama Club
at a very young age, around six or seven. Already playing the
piano and recorder, it was with the drama club that she was first
introduced to the steelpan. Now, many years later, Amanda
says she has noticed and appreciates the advantages of being
a pianist, in conjunction with being a pan player. Because of
her background in piano, she has observed the resultant
latitude afforded her in creativity, in grasping of
harmonies, the use of chord structures and the like. She
notes that she understands better the family of steelpan
instruments, and how they interplay with each other, and the music comes to
her more easily as a result.
The double second pan became her main instrument through the
drama club. Amanda recalls that at its inception, all the
club’s members were ‘tiny’ and their pans, at that point
were just their size – just like the ‘souvenir’ type
miniature steelpans. Amanda’s were put on a bookshelf for
her to play, and she even remembers the first song the
diminutive club members learnt – Lord Kitchener’s Sugar Bum Bum.
Asked about the importance of Brizee’s Cultural Drama Club,
and its impact on her life, Amanda responded, “The drama club to me is like a
family; we have our own little unit, we’re all friends – you
get to meet people – and then, because you’re with them all
the time, doing this thing that you all love, you have this
in common. There is this bond that you have. Aunty Anna
[Anna-Maria Raffoul, founder of the [drama club], she’s like
the supportive mother.” The drama club has also afforded the
young lady the opportunity and challenge of arranging. She
is presently working on Alicia Keys’ hit song ‘No One’ for the group.
Her travels to St. Lucia to play with Digicel Pan Times steel
orchestra for Panorama from 2005 — 2007, are experiences
which Amanda finds very different to pan in Dominica, and
almost indescribable. The young pannist found it literally
mind–blowing to be playing with a full–sized steel orchestra. Her eyes
lit up as she talked about “fifteen year-olds playing with
forty–year olds – such a range of pans!” There are no seven–bass, or nine–bass instruments in Dominica, and only one set
of quadraphonic pans on the island. “To go down there [St.
Lucia] with all these opportunities – I really don’t know
how to describe it…it’s wild!”
Her mom Gemma exasperatingly but laughingly interjected here
“Let me just tell you something about this child that is
driving her father and myself absolutely crazy: [we would
ask] ‘Mandy, what about Physics – (sigh from Mandy); what
about Math (sigh from Mandy); and then you say the word
“PAN” {Mandy’s countenance radiates and she transforms!).” In St. Lucia for 2007 Amanda happily had in tow one of her
friends and fellow drama club member, tenor player Nicole
Tom, who according to Amanda, is just as dedicated and
interested in pan.
Amanda has also been fortunate to visit Trinidad in 2005
along with her drama club band mates. There, they took in
the junior panorama competition – with the orchestras in the
under–twenty–one age group carrying the full one hundred
musician–complement, and being an
even greater source of steelpan wonder to them all. She
reminisces that on the way to the junior panorama, their
group saw
one of the twelve-basses that are characteristic of one of
Trinidad’s conventional steel orchestras, Harmonites. One of
the drama club’s bass players exclaimed “I want to play that!” The group did not stay for the main panorama competition,
but did have time to visit one of the orchestras’ pan yards
during practice.
In light of her experiences, Amanda would love to be one of
the innovators of pan on the island of Dominica, and to play
a pivotal role in bringing the instrument back into prominence,
once more featuring larger steel orchestras. Asked about
the possibility of a few of Dominica’s steelpan groups
coming together for a single performance – Amanda mused
about the concept of Cool Steel, Genesis and Brizee’s
Cultural Drama Club coming together (as three of the
island’s more
active groups), for the nation’s upcoming Independence
celebration in November 2008. “It would be great to get the
younger people with the new ideas and the older people with
their experience together.”
Graduation from Orion Academy is just around the corner, and
for now with college on the horizon Amanda has set her sights on music as a minor, but
is as yet unsure what her major would be. She does admit
though, that could she be sure of music as a viable source of
income, it would be her major! For now, she is
awaiting responses from colleges in the United States to which she has
applied; one thing is for certain – her beloved double
seconds pans are traveling with her to college.
Amanda remains firm in the knowledge that the steelpan would
be central in her life as she matures, and looks forward to
joining the ranks of those who are industry professionals in
their chosen fields, by day, and gifted steelpan musicians
‘by night.’
contact:
Gemma Lawrence | email:
gemmalawrence@cwdom.dm
contact:
Dominica Steelband
Association | Anna Raffoul, President; Founder, Brizee’s Cultural Drama Club | email:
dominipan@hotmail.com | tel: (767) 448 2622
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