Tortola, British Virgin Islands - A night that was scheduled to feature several local and regional steel bands was a bust, where there were no performances by any steel bands and no announcement from the festival committee about the change.

According to the calendar of events promoted by the Virgin Islands Festival and Fairs committee, Sunday July 29, 2012 was expected to have performances by local and regional steel bands at the Claudette ‘Boopie’ Smith Festiville.

According to a committee official, who wished to remain unnamed, steel bands were invited to the event but they did not show up.
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New York, USA - Less than six weeks before the colorful West Indian carnival is put on full display before more than a million spectators in Brooklyn, serious doubts have arisen about the much anticipated pulsating sounds of Caribbean steelbands being heard during the annual Panorama competition.

Doubts have surfaced after a corporate sponsor opted to withdraw an offer of at least $120,000 it intended to spend to finance on a new Panorama competition in Coney Island because of vociferous complaints from some sections of the Caribbean community.

“Panorama is held every year as an important part of carnival but so far this year we haven’t seen or heard anything from the West Indian American Day Carnival Association, the usual promoter of the event to stage it,” said Anthony “Ike” Hinds, head of the National Alliance of Steelbands, an umbrella group of steelbands in the City. “What has happened is that some unfortunate statements were made by people outside of the planning group and who are opposed to any Panorama being organized by anyone other than the West Indian American-Day Carnival Association, WIADCA.
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Tobago, W.I. - The RBC Redemption Sound Setters Steel Orchestra recently launched its annual July-August holidays, “Redemption Academy Pan Camp” for children ages five and up.

The camp will run for four to five weeks after which the class will host a concert to showcase what they have learnt as well as to receive certificates of participation. Redemption panyard is located on Montgomery Road in Bethel, right next to the Montgomery Primary School and across the street from the Montgomery Recreational Ground.

....Captain of Redemption, Marie Toby noted that for the first time they will have about 80 children in the camp, well over what they had initially planned for.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Patrons who paid $50 to attend "Pan on A Higher Note" at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) in Port of Spain on Saturday evening left smiling, having got more than their money's worth.

The concert featured the National Steel Symphony Orchestra (NSSO) and Tambores de Cabildo from Colombia. The Lord Kitchener Auditorium at NAPA was filled with patrons who enjoyed concert music at its best.

The concert was a mixture of musical works inspired by and composed for national events. It started with Manuel Falla's performance of "The Ritual Fire Dance" from El Amar Brujo.
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Barbados, W.I. - Yesterday evening while many watched the rain and grey clouds, pan enthusiasts, soca lovers and tourists still flocked to Brandons Beach to enjoy the Neal & Massy, Republic Bank Pan Pun de Sand.

Bringing the Crop Over Pan Weekend to a close on a high note were the highly-anticipated musicians of the 50-piece Trinidadian steel orchestra, Exodus , sponsored by Republic Bank. Their exciting hour-long set was enhanced further by surprise appearances by calypsonians Red Plastic Bag and Black Stalin.

It was an evening of ‘pan-tastic’ entertainment as orchestra after orchestra took to the stage from around 4 o’clock. Also gracing the stage were a number of local groups including Pan Xtreme, Reddy Panners, Eastland AllStars and Mosaic, who set the festive mood.
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North Tyneside, England, U.K. - Scores of people gathered inside Tynemouth Station on Saturday morning to take in a steel band as Saturday’s Mouth of the Tyne festivities got under way.

The North Tyneside Steel Band played a number of songs for onlookers, who had come into the station specifically to take in the music.

Parents and their children could be seen dancing along with the beat of the songs as the band went through a number of contemporary hits.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - On August 26, from 4 pm, City Sunvalley Steel Orchestra will host Celebrating the Icons of Nelson Street, on Nelson Street, Port-of-Spain. The day’s programme features 2012 National Panorama champion Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, runners-up Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove and BP Renegades, Witco Desperadoes, Carib Woodbrook Playboyz, Sapophonics, La Famile United, Freelancers and City Sunvalley. In an interview with the T&T Guardian, Sunvalley manager Gerard Mendez explained that his steelband and a committee, that includes PRO Lance Lashley, decided to honour the people of Nelson Street and environs who have contributed to the development of T&T on the nation’s 50^th anniversary of Independence.

....“I am throwing out a challenge to all the T&T media that, in the same way during the state of emergency they showed and reported about the 21 guys detained from Nelson Street, that they come out and showcase this positive side of Nelson Street. “We want the media to focus on the positives within our community, one which has good, wholesome and God-fearing citizens residing as well,” Mendez said.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - "I am fed up! Fed up! Fed up!" these were the last words of Beverly Ramsey-Moore the Tobago Pan Trinbago representative to the Pan Trinbago executive before she tendered her resignation from the national executive of the steelband body. Ramsey-Moore, a former THA representative and trustee Keith Simpson, a Scotia Bank staffer from Diego Martin in West Trinidad pulled themselves out of the national Pan Trinbago executive.

At present, Pan Trinbago is headed by President Keith Diaz who had defeated Patrick Arnold for the president's post in the last executive elections. However, Diaz's presidency has been coming under increasing attack from different sections of the steelband movement. In fact a Ramsey-Moore letter to the Pan Trinbago president gave a graphic insight into the situation facing the Pan Trinbago president at this time.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Pan’s future expansion lies not in the 1.2 million nation of TT, but in the 170 million people of Nigeria and other West African nations.

Africans who have learned much about the pan were at Wednesday’s launch of the Africa-Trinidad and Tobago Steelpan Development Company Limited. The launch took place at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain.

The function was supported by Pan Trinbago — whose president, Keith Diaz, is on the joint board of directors of the newly launched company. The TT Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also connected.

Nigeria-TT Chamber of Commerce co-chair, Mrs Ladi Franklin, recalled her group’s fact-finding mission to Nigeria July, 2011 to explore steel-pan making opportunities and possible strategic alliances.

The mission then met former Nigeria President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who she dubbed the progenitor of pan in Nigeria. She praised the new company’s CEO, Chief Bogwie Bowei, for his work in Nigeria in making steelpans, creating a steelband, and running steelband competitions.
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Wisconsin, USA - The sounds of the islands come to Halfway Creek Park on Sunday evening as the Coulee Region Steel Band brings its tropical vibe to the summer band shell concert series.

Jim Knutson, who started a student steel drum band known as the Pan Project as a music teacher at Onalaska High School, a few years back got the steel drum band going for adults, thanks to a grant from the La Crosse Community Foundation.
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Tennessee, USA - The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago is far away—geographically and culturally—from Iowa or Tennessee, for that matter.

Nevertheless, Hawkeye State native Tony Hartman has embraced the islands, making the steelpan, a unique and distinct part of Trinidad and Tobago's musical heritage, the centerpiece of his Nashville-based jazz-funk fusion band The Great Barrier Reefs.

"We're just trying to take the pan to new places, not only in terms of new venues but in terms of sharing the sound with new people," says Hartman, whose group also includes saxophonist Josh Dunlap, guitarist Rheal Janelle, drummer Matt Heller, and Memphis-born bassist Taylor Lonardo. The band performs at the Hi-Tone Café Saturday with local jam band Agori Tribe and psychedelic electronica group The Apollo! Project.

"One of the biggest comments I get when we're out and about with this group is, "Man I've never seen that before. I've never heard that before.'

"People will crack jokes like, 'What, are y'all going to make some stir-fry in this thing?'
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - It was "unfortunate and unnecessary for the Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to take "public issue with President George Maxwell Richards and try to correct him" for making a statement that the steel pan was the only innovation from this country, Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley said yesterday.

....Rowley said the President was quite correct in saying that the steelpan was the only innovation in our life as a nation.

"The Prime Minister corrects him and says 'No, we have cultural diversity and harmony'."

"We didn't invent harmony. We didn't invent cultural diversity. We invented the steel pan. So I don't know what the Prime Minister was thinking," Rowley said.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday "respectfully" disagreed with President George Maxwell Richards.

Richards, addressing both Houses of Parliament, stated that "except for the steelpan, we have been consumers rather than innovators, and we must be careful not to miss out on getting in at the ground level of the new scientific exposure, and here, university education matters".

...."Mr Speaker, if I may respectfully agree to disagree with his Excellency the President when he said that apart from the steelpan, there has been no innovativeness in Trinidad and Tobago, I respectfully disagree. Yes, the steelpan is one symbol of innovativeness, the only musical, acoustical instrument invented in the last century, but Trinidad and Tobago is known throughout the world for innovativeness, creativity, the diversity of our people, the harmony, the unity in diversity which represents Trinidad and Tobago."

This elicited applause from the Government benches.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Two members of the Pan Trinbago central executive have resigned with immediate effect, citing an absence of transparency and integrity as reasons for their departure. The two are Beverley Ramsey-Moore, the former assistant secretary and Keith Simpson a former trustee. Ramsey-Moore said she would reveal all when she hosts a news conference at Silver Stars Panyard, Tragarete Road, Port of Spain, tomorrow.

In an immediate response, president of Pan Trinbago, Keith Diaz, warned that people must be careful what they said because litigation could follow. He said a special meeting had been carded for 10 am on Sunday at Scherzando Panyard, Evans Street, Curepe, “where we will reveal all that we have to reveal.”

By letter, dated July 4 and addressed to Diaz, Ramsey-Moore said for the past two years she had continuously expressed concerns on the matter of transparency and integrity in dealings under the name of Pan Trinbago Inc.
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Grenada, W.I. - Grenada is recognised for its ability in producing people who are sincere to the art of pan and pan music. For the second consecutive year, Drill Master at the Republic Bank Angel Harps, Andy Chichester was invited to judge the panorama competition in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) that took place on Thursday.

In an exclusive interview with The New Today Newspaper, Chichester said that having judged in Trinidad and Tobago from 2000 and 2005, and still being one of Pan Trinbago’s several judges, he would be recommended as one of their judges when other Caribbean countries are in search of judges for their panorama competitions.

He stated that the authorities in SVG contacted him directly from since last year since they did not want all of the judges to come from Trinidad. The pan enthusiast disclosed that he has also judged competitions in St. Lucia, and Antigua.
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Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, USA - As the Percussion and Steel Band Academy students arrive at Birch Creek Music Performance Center in Egg Harbor, they begin meeting new mentors, making new friendships, learning new music, experiencing new techniques and developing their own individual disciplines.

This year, the students, along with Birch Creek staff, faculty and audience members, also prepare to say goodbye to long-time Steel Band director G. Alan O’Connor, aka Al. After 29 years of developing and directing the Birch Creek Steel Band program, O’Connor has decided to retire at the end of this season.
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Bridgetown, Barbados, W.I. - The 1688 Nonet is a unique Caribbean musical ensemble of brass and steel pan, dedicated to the craft of instrumental performance.

The group, the brainchild of Stefan Walcott, provides a space for young semi-professional and professional musicians, to continually develop their craft by engaging in Caribbean and other Afro-Diasporic musical forms. 
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - FORMER Legal Affairs Minister in the People's National Movement (PNM) government, Peter Taylor, has slammed the People's Partnership Government for failing to honour international obligations with respect to payments of annuities on patents and trademarks related to the Genesis Pan (G-Pan).

On May 7, 2009 Everard Byer, a registered patent and trade mark agent, was authorised to "coordinate the payment of annuities payable in respect of the patent rights in the G-Pan musical instrument on behalf of the Ministry of the Attorney General", a release from Taylor stated yesterday.

Annuities are payable every year.
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Barbados, W.I. - RBC has pledged their support to the National Cultural Foundation to sponsor Pan in de City as was the tradition with RBTT.

During a press launch Friday, Market Head – Business Banking (Barbados & Eastern Caribbean), RBC Royal Bank (Barbados) Limited, Rae Debbie Skinner said, “RBC continues to be proud sponsors of the event and even in the midst of the financial challenges facing our economy and, with it the reality that corporate sponsors are now carefully considering their spends, we at RBC still see Pan in de City as an extremely worthwhile venture.”

....With support such as this, Pan in de City has grown over the years from a small gathering of pan-enthusiasts in Heroes Square to becoming one of the signature events on the Crop Over Calendar held now in the UNESCO inscription Bridgetown with crowds of hundreds regardless of the weather.
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London, England  - John Lewis Bluewater has awarded a Greenhithe primary school £2,000 to start a steel pan band.

Stone St Mary’s Church of England Primary School, in Hayes Road, will use the cash to buy equipment for the band.

...."We are thrilled to be able to provide a donation to enable them to start a Pan steel band. We wish them every success and can’t wait for the next concert."
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Bridgetown, Barbados, W.I. - The RBC Pan in de City was launched on Friday at the RBC Lower Broad Street Branch.

....The large numbers of festival-goers in recent years at the Pan in de City is a testament to how much pan music influences the musical tastes of listeners at this time.

Producer of the RBC Pan in de City, Karen Pestaina, explained that this year the event will feature the best line-up of steel pan orchestras guaranteed to thrill audiences.

Always a spectacular show, top local Pan Sensation Ziggy Walcott and number of steel orchestras will serenade listeners while making an entrance on a floating barge up the Careenage and into the inner basin of Independence Square.
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Washington D.C., USA - Considering the steel pan drum originated in Trinidad and Tobago, few people associate the state of West Virginia with steel drum bands. However, the West Virginia University steel drum ensemble has received standing ovations following daily performances at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., over the past week and a half.

Led by Dr. Michael Vercelli, director of the World Music Performance Center at West Virginia University (WVU), the band has played a wide variety of songs, from traditional Trinidadian tunes to "The Star-Spangled Banner" to even a cover of "On the Floor" by Jennifer Lopez.

“[The West Virginians are] representing a musical style and culture that isn't their own, but it's something that they've embraced,” says Cristina Diaz-Carrera, program coordinator of the Campus and Community section at this year’s Smithsonian festival. “I think this is what the festival is all about—exploring cultural boundaries."
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - The recent Birdsong annual Scholarship Benefit Concert was one of the best productions staged at the Lord Kitchener Auditorium of the National Academy of the Performing Arts (NAPA) since its opening. Staged by the Birdsong Academy, an academic appendage of Birdsong Steel Orchestra, the institution reaches beyond Pan to include teaching its young students in other instruments, including keyboard, string, wind, brass and percussion. Stage managed by Maria King and Calvin Bartholomew, the programme ran seamlessly, featuring celebrated US panist Andy Narell, academy faculty member and keyboardist Raf Robertson, US-domiciled Vincentian keyboardist Frankie McIntosh, sight-impaired Berklee College vocalist Nyol Manswell, jazz singer Vaughnette Bigford and Birdsong Small Ensemble.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - A number of years ago, Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove rocked the Queen’s Park Savannah at the National Panorama final playing Birthday Party. Last Saturday night, Hamilton Street in Woodbrook rocked when Phase II celebrated its 40^th birthday. Joining “D Phase” for the celebration were reigning National Panorama champion Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, Republic Bank Exodus, Witco Desperadoes and the host band, and a huge horde of pan lovers that included former chief justice Clinton Bernard, attorney Martin Daly, deputy Port-of-Spain mayor Kerron Valentine, Mervyn Telfer, Pan Trinbago president Keith Diaz and members of his executive, Yohan Popwell, Lenny “Stretch” Tyson, and Michelle Huggins-Watts.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - On July 7 and 14 seven-time Schools Junior Panorama champion St Margaret’s Boys’ Youth Steel Orchestra will treat the nation to a concert, along with seven other youth steel orchestras. The event, dubbed Pan Extravaganza, is a fund-raiser aimed at purchasing new instruments to expand and improve the school’s pan programme. The band’s manager Rosemarie Abraham says the event also seeks to create a non-competitive, musical environment where families and friends can engage in healthy and meaningful socialisation.
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West Virginia, USA - Surely you haven’t heard “Country Roads” quite like this.

The sounds of every Mountaineer’s favorite John Denver song are resonating through the nation’s capital in an Afro-Caribbean flavor, courtesy of the West Virginia University Steel Drum Band.

About 40 students from the ensemble are also churning out a handful of patriotic tunes calypso-style—from “Home on the Range” and “Yankee Doodle” to “America the Beautiful.”

....The “father of the modern steel drum,” Ellie Mannette, joined students on their opening night performance. Mannette, a National Heritage Fellow, started WVU’s Steel Drum Band in the 1990s and served as a faculty member and director of the University Tuning Project until 2008.
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Kingston, Jamaica, W.I. -  The Trinidad & Tobago Defence Force Steel Band brought the spirit of that twin-island republic to last weekend's staging of the Military Tattoo at Up Park Camp in St Andrew.

The steel band offered music which included the works of Trinidad's The Mighty Sparrow and others, much to the appreciation and delight of the audience which streamed into the military base for the four-night presentation.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Once again the Birdsong Music Academy rose to the occasion and produced a scintillating performance at its benefit concert on June 21 at NAPA in Port of Spain.

Last year at Queen's Hall the young musicians wowed the audience at their first ever benefit and followed this with another stellar performance at Christmas.

The programme notes explain that "Birdsong Academy reaches beyond the steelpan to include other instruments (keyboard, string, wind, brass and other percussion instruments) as it prepares students to be well-rounded musicians with the skills and competencies to enjoy a lifetime of music".

Birdsong is being modest because its greatest achievement is the development of well-rounded human beings equipped with the self-confidence and self-discipline to succeed in life. And it does it without charging any fees, an amazing feat, especially at a time when few people do anything except for financial gain.
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North Carolina, USA - East Cary Middle School Band Director Mike Hopkins knows how to go out with a bang: The week before he retired, he took about 50 people, including parents, students, fellow teachers, his wife and adult sons… to Disney World.

Hopkins’ steel drum band, composed of seventh- and eighth-graders, is the only middle school steel drum band in the state. Known as “Captain Dixie’s Spuds and Suds,” the group performed at Downtown Disney on June 22.

....Hopkins began teaching at East Cary when it reopened in 2007 and worked with then-Principal Dixie Frazier to get steel drums for the students.

....Q: Why steel drums? And how difficult was it to get a steel drum band started?

When East Cary was getting ready to open, Ms. Frazier and I discussed what we could do to be different. One of us suggested steel drums.

We got it up and going really quickly. We started with five drums (called “pans”), and we’re up to nine. It’s very competitive; the seventh- and eighth-graders have to audition by learning the songs. Whoever plays them best gets to be in the band.
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Delaware, USA - Patriotism and big band sounds with a Caribbean flare filled the air around different areas of Delaware during the last few days as the 73rd Army Band of the Virgin Islands National Guard completed a number of free public concerts in the state's coastal area.

Sgt. Athneil Thomas, public affairs specialist, said the group's concert, marching, steel band and calypso ensembles entertained crowds of thousands with music from Latin, calypso, reggae and French-Caribbean genres.

Audience members readily left their seats to dance to the sounds of the music as well as to stand during several patriotic songs.

....Thomas said the Virgin Islands' citizen soldier-musicians can boast membership of the U.S. military's only Calypso Combo and only complete steel drum ensemble.

Chief Warrant Officer Sheila Klotz, commander of the 257th Army Band of Washington, D.C., said she was impressed by the band's talent and their complement of steel drum and calypso ensembles.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - New Arts & Multiculturalism Minister Dr Lincoln Douglas paid an impromptu visit to Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove’s panyard on Saturday night. A surprised Phase II leader Len “Boogsie” Sharpe and band manager Errol Skerritt welcomed the minister to the Woodbrook venue as the steel orchestra celebrated its 40th anniversary.

With huge luminous silver flags fluttering in the breeze at the entrance to the panyard, a mammoth crowd was entertained by live performances from reigning National Panorama champion Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, Republic Bank Exodus, Witco Desperadoes and the host band.
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Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - In 1951, an era when young middle-class women were kept far away from the steelband movement, “Ellie” Robertson joined the Girl Pat Steel Orchestra, the first all women steelband formed in Trinidad and Tobago by the late Hazel Henley, a teacher at St Crispin’s Anglican School.

In a 2006 interview with Sunday Newsday, Robertson and another member, Pat Maurice, who were both residing in New York and had come home for Carnival, spoke of the “great fun” they had as members of “Girl Pat” under Hazel’s tutelage. “She was always very “avant garde”, and not only an academic but a talented musician, as well, who had always been fascinated by the pan,” they both said.

Eleanor Marion Robertson, or “Ellie” as she was always called, passed away on June 5 in New York.

....it was “playing pan” at 79 Picton Street, Newtown, in Hazel’s gallery, that Ellie never forgot. It was very near to the Woodbrook community, which was always about pan. Bruce Procope got the Girl Pat pans from Esso and Ellie Mannette of Invaders tuned them.

“We started practising and it was memorable for us founding members in a band of about ten, since Girl Pat started just for fun. Quite a number of people would come to listen to us practise. On the other hand a lot of people were very annoyed,” Robertson in the Newsday interview.

So annoyed said Robertson in that Newsday interview that “my school principal went to my mother and asked ‘how could you have your daughter beating pan’.”
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Kingstown, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, W.I. - Three secondary and two primary schools, along with eight community bands will sound their noted this afternoon when the Junior Pan Fest kicks off at Carnival City Victoria Park.

Performing in the community band segment of Junior Pan Fest are last year's winners Sea Operations Starlift, Sion Hill Euphonium, Port Authority Genesis, Vita Malt Symphonix, Mustique Charitable Trust Georgetown All Stars, Caribbean Construction Authority Canouan Steel Orchestra, New Dimensions and Rose Bank North Stars.
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