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Web Posted - Thursday February 28, 2013
Lonestar.edu

LSC-North Harris Steel Band in concert with International Recording Artist Andy Narell on April 7

Texas, USA - The Lone Star College-North Harris Steel Band will be performing in concert with international recording artist, Andy Narell and special guests Relator and Mark Walker, Sunday, April 7, 2013 at 2 p.m. in the Performing Arts Theater (ARTS-115). The community is invited to attend this free event.

“Our student performers will have the opportunity of a lifetime by sharing the stage with international musicians of this caliber,” said Jeff Gleason, department chair of music.

....The steel band consists of 60 members, 20 of them being from LSC-North Harris.
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Web Posted - Tuesday February 26, 2013
When Steel Talks

How Pan (and Neville Jules) Saved My Life

by Dalton Narine

Global - I met Pete many, many nightmares ago at a Veterans Administration (VA) hospital in New York City. He’d left his legs in a booby trap in Vietnam. So they doped him up to alleviate chronic pain. When doctors stopped the meds, a friend on the ward helped out with heroin. Pete got hooked. And life returned as a figment of hell.

....Jules considered my condition, then reintroduced me to the music and All Stars’ extreme regimen, which became an alternate way of life. The detoxification was slow but measured. The music sweet. The Panorama was coming up. The Bomb song and other road music loomed on the playlist. The work ethic and camaraderie back in the jungle pushed through to the yard. And, by the time Carnival was over I’d all but weaned myself off the drug.
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Web Posted - Tuesday February 26, 2013
The MidWeek

Steel pan concert benefits tutors

Illinois, USA - The Northern Illinois University Steel Band will provide a tropical reprieve for those with cabin fever on Friday, March 1. The renowned NIU Steel Band, under the direction of Liam Teague, will perform an eclectic blend of music from across the globe to benefit the literacy and academic enrichment programs of Neighbors’ House across DeKalb County.

The concert will take place at 6:30 p.m. at the Evangelical Free Church, on the corner of Bethany Road and First Street in DeKalb.
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Web Posted - Monday February 25, 2013
Sioux City Journal

Flying Pans Steel Band performs
 

Iowa, USA -  A steel drum band from Central College in Pella will perform at 7 p.m. March 10 at the Maurice Reformed Church, 410 Main St. A workshop will be held from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., for all ages.

Flying Pans Steel Band will also do a short assembly at MOC-Floyd Valley Elementary in Orange City, plus workshops with fifth graders on March 11.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 24, 2013
The Register-Herald

BAC presenting the WVU Steel Drum Band March 3
 

West Virginia, USA -  Beckley Concert Association’s next presentation will offer up the West Virginia University Steel Drum Band and African Music and Dance Ensemble.

The performance will be held March 3 at 2 p.m. at the Woodrow Wilson High School auditorium.

WVU’s Steel Drum Band was started by Ellie Mannette, known as the “father of the modern steel drum” and a National Heritage Fellow, in the 1990s.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 24, 2013
Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

Pan Trinbago pays tribute to stalwarts

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Pan Trinbago, in celebrating its 50th anniversary, paid tribute to some of Trinidad and Tobago’s outstanding arrangers, tuners and steel bands in a gala awards ceremony at Cascadia Hotel, St Ann’s, on Friday night.

It was 50 years ago, to the very day, that the preliminaries of the very first Panorama was held with 42 steel bands. Today, 12 of these steel bands still participate in Panorama every year at Carnival - Casablanca, City Kids, Desperadoes, Hatters, Invaders, Our Boys, Pan North Stars (winner of the first Panorama), Merrytones, Renegades, Starlift, San Juan Allstars and Southern Marines.
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Web Posted - Saturday February 23, 2013
Trinidad Express Newspapers

Phase II for Nigeria

As part of Panorama first prize...

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - National Panorama 2013 winner (Large Band) Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove will travel to Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, in November as part of its first prize winnings.

This announcement was made last Friday night at the Pan Trinbago 50th anniversary Panorama Prize Distribution and Awards Ceremony at the Cascadia Hotel, St Ann's.

Late in the proceedings the Trinidad and Tobago High Commissioner to Nigeria, Nyahuma Mentuhotep Obika, made the announcement during his brief remarks.

....Phase II will make the trip to Nigeria for the Abuja Carnival, which comes off from the November 24-27.

Pan Trinbago president Keith Diaz said the Chrome Group in Nigeria will sponsor the trip for Phase II.

"It will be nothing like the trip Witco Desperadoes and Courts Sound Specialists made; this one will be big," said Diaz.
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Web Posted - Saturday February 23, 2013
Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

Success Stars to perform at US Black Arts Festival

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Success Stars Pan Sounds of Laventille has been invited back to Atlanta, Georgia, USA for more performances, after leaving patrons speechless when they performed at Centennial Olympic Park last year.

Rick Martin, senior news editor at the well known US media house CNN was instrumental in getting the three-time National Junior Panorama (Non-Schools) pan champs to play at the National Black Arts Festival (NBAF).

....About getting this particular band to the US, Martin stated that he chose it because he felt they were students who worked hard, practiced hard and showed results, and at the time, they were twice junior panorama champions in the non-school category and thus felt they deserved an experience of a lifetime.
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Web Posted - Friday February 23, 2013
When Steel Talks

Leon “Foster” Thomas -

A When Steel Talks Exclusive
 

Global - He is one of the most dynamic talents out of the Caribbean. Hailing from Trinidad and Tobago, Leon “Foster” Thomas has already left an indelible mark in the music arena as a performer, recording artist and songwriter. Today, When Steel Talks (WST) has an exclusive interview with Leon as the world-class steel orchestra Panorama drummer for the recently-crowned 2013 Panorama Champion Phase II Pan Groove. Leon shares with us the mindset that has him revered as one of the best steelband panorama drummers ever.
click for interview

Web Posted - Thursday February 21, 2013
When Steel Talks

Ray Holman - Reflections on Steelband Panorama 2013
 

Global - Panorama 2013 is in the history books, but the music of this year’s season is still reverberating in Trinidad and Tobago, and with Pan lovers around the world. When Steel Talks (WST) speaks with veteran champion arranger Ray Holman as he reflects on this past season in this exclusive interview.
click for interview

Web Posted - Wednesday February 20, 2013
When Steel Talks

The Hope of T&T - Sapna: the Dream Song of the Carnival

by Dalton Narine

Global - If, as DJs have circulated, Carnival 2013 was regaled by some 4,000 festival songs, then the dream of the whole lot has been Sapna, a bit of cross-genre music in which our culture is courted by a love story and treated with lavish respect and due regard. It is a mashup that evolved from many minds.

Subtitled the Dream, the chutney soca ballad, sung by Gerelle Forbes, and composed by Ray Holman and Fazad “Joe” Shageer, awakens the senses with a dose of reality. It alludes to a progressive shift in the political and cultural sensibility while digging out retro indifference or attitude to the realism of our times.
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Web Posted - Wednesday February 20, 2013
StLucianewsonline.com

Jazz at the village in Laborie on Friday, Feb. 22

St. Lucia, W.I. - Jazz at the Village returns to the Laborie Village Square on Friday with performances by the Laborie Pan Project and the Shomari Maxwell Quintet.

Special guest Andy Narell will join both performances for what promises to be a very special evening of quality music. The show begins at 7 pm.

....For this second concert, Jazz at the Village will feature the Laborie Pan Project which is an initiative of Labowi Promotions, which started in November 2006. Its first public appearance took place in February 2007. Since then, the project has performed on several occasions including at Jazz in the South, at the Choiseul Carnival Queen Pageant show 2007 and 2008, and at several celebrations and events in Laborie.

In 2012, they placed second at the Junior Panorama competition.
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Web Posted - Tuesday February 19, 2013
When Steel Talks

New cultural economic order

Pan, Mas and Calypso

by Sunity Maharaj

Global - A big lagniappe of Carnival 2013 was the duel over rights in which value creators squared off against value appropriators.

It's been a long time in coming, but in the knowledge economy of the 21st century, it was only a matter of time before the simmering pot would start boiling over.

....Countless PhDs from non-Caribbean institutions have been built on the intellectual capital going to waste in this country, the fruits of their work stashed in university libraries and personal archives around the world, in every format and perhaps in every language. However patchy their quality or incomplete their understanding, the more important issue for us should, however, be our own inability- refusal even- to recognise the value existing around us.
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Web Posted - Monday February 18, 2013
Guyana Chronicle

Fans get real treat at Steelband Pan-O-Rama

Georgetown, Guyana, S.A. - Fans had a real treat to four and a half hours of truly excellent steelpan music when they attended the Mashramani Steelband Competition Pan–O-Rama, at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, on Homestretch Avenue in Georgetown, last Sunday evening. The performances, judged in six categories, climaxed the night, when the experienced Guyana Police Force Steel Orchestra arrested the first prize in the large band category.

The other winners were North Ruimveldt Multilateral School among school bands; St. Andrews Kirk amidst Church bands; senior soloist Ray Sparman, junior soloist Delroy Dey and duet Clayton Daniels and Ray Sparman.

....The judging panel was led by Director of Music, Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Major Robert Burns and included Mrs. Andrea Mentore, Mrs. Donette Greaves, Mr. Clyde Peres and Dr. Hilary Browne.
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Web Posted - Monday February 18, 2013
When Steel Talks

St. Margaret’s Boys Anglican School Creates Worldwide Pan History

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Worldwide pan history was created within our 2013 Golden Jubilee, national panorama season at the schools’ panorama competition held at the “Big Yard,” Port of Spain, on February 3rd, when the St Margaret’s Boys’ Anglican School Steel Orchestra Under-13s copped a double hat-trick title, consecutively, playing Destra’s Vibes.

With a late start, the competition was opened with the national anthem played on the digital pan, for the first time, this, by two of its 11 year-old panists while, the school also attained boasting rights of being the first to have performed in two categories within the same competition – Under-13 and Under 21.
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Web Posted - Monday February 18, 2013
When Steel Talks

Dalton Narine’s Panorama Notes 2013

by Dalton Narine

Global - Someday, Phase II drill person Natasha Joseph will arrange for a large band in the Panorama, “but I’m biding my time.” For now, arranger Len “Boogsie” Sharpe relies on her ability to conduct rehearsal sessions, so indispensable has Joseph been to him and the band.

Joseph, of Barataria, has been working alongside Sharpe since 2007, the year his arrangement for Carib Dixieland won the Tobago Panorama. She’d been preparing for the glare of the lights since she was 11, when she began to teach herself music by absorbing material from secondary school work books.

....In 2003, Joseph was accepted at Berklee College of Music in Boston, but couldn’t pick up enough sponsorship “to go through even one semester. I tried real hard, all over the island.”
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Web Posted - Sunday February 17, 2013
Gina.gov.gy

Delightful sounds engulf Mash Pan-o-rama Steel Band competition

Guyana, SA - Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, performing the duties of the President and Minister of Culture Youth and Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony were among music lovers enjoying the delightful sounds of the Republic Bank Mashramani Pan-o-rama Steel Band competition which was staged this evening at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

This event, which is in its fifth year, is fully sponsored by Republic Bank, and forms part of the bank’s “power to make a difference” initiative. It also forms part of the 43rd Republic anniversary activities which is being held under the theme “reflecting creativity celebrating diversity.

The competition which saw bands competing in categories such a; Senior Solo, Junior Solo, Pan Duet, School band, Church Band and Large Band featured a preliminary competition held at the National Cultural Centre (NCC) on February 15 as part of the Children’s Mashramani competition.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 17, 2013
When Steel Talks

Work of calypso great Maestro to be reviewed
 

Global - Calypso will be the focus of the next Trinidad & Tobago Folk Arts Institute forum at Medgar Evers College, when a panel discussion explores the phenomenal work and legacy of the late Maestro, 35 years after his death. The event, another in the series of collaborations between the Folk Arts Institute and the College’s School of Professional and Community Development, will be held Thursday evening, February 28 in the Mary Pinkett Lecture Hall, 1637 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn on the Medgar Evers campus.

....Exodus, Buccooneers, Supernovas, Tamana Pioneers, Tokyo and West Stars steel orchestras all chose Maestro’s revamped “Gold” as their tune of choice in the Trinidad & Tobago Panorama 2013.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 17, 2013
When Steel Talks

Mickiel Gabriel, Champion arranger for Success Stars Pan Sounds - Panorama 2013

Global - Meet the champion arranger for Success Stars Pan Sounds in the Non-School category of Trinidad & Tobago’s Junior National Panorama, Mickiel Gabriel. The orchestra is from Laventille. This ‘successful’ collaboration has resulted in three consecutive championship years; 2011, 2012 and 2013. Mickiel has vocalized and arranged the band’s tune of choice on each occasion.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 17, 2013
When Steel Talks

Carnival TV to the Rescue - Steelpan on the Internet for Trinidad Carnival 2013

Global - Trinidad and Tobago has a beautiful and unique carnival. Trinidad and Tobago also has no shortage of bureaucracy and bacchanal surrounding its annual event. There are issues associated with the carnival that just leave one’s head shaking. An over-abundance of organizations, (governmental, private and otherwise) with all kinds of call letters from the alphabet (have your pick - ANA, ABA, etc., etc., etc.) that each apparently have a hand in every aspect of the carnival festivities. But moreover, they have no reputations that can be damaged.

....The results were no Pan on the internet or locally broadcast. What can be worse that an unscheduled reality visit by a ship of fools?
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Web Posted - Saturday February 16, 2013
Trinidad Express Newspapers

PAN Pioneers ...at play
 

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - After Panorama each year there is only one place you are sure to catch panmen (and women) other than the panyard. On Thursday, panmen gathered at the home of veteran steelband pioneer Hugh Borde for his annual Pan Pioneers "panman" lime. Forty-three years ago, Borde began hosting the event at his home in Mc Carthy Street, Belmont, as a show of solidarity to fellow panmen and to bring the pan fraternity together in unity. Thursday's event saw pan pioneers, who have largely contributed to the culture of Trinidad and Tobago, mingling in camaraderie, sharing past experiences, photographs, reminiscing on over 60 years of steel and celebrating this year's successful season.
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Web Posted - Thursday February 14, 2013
When Steel Talks

The Golden Anniversary of Panorama 2013

by Dr. Jeannine Remy

Global - The steelpan music of Trinidad and Tobago has certainly come a long way in the past 50 years from 21 participating bands in 1963 preliminaries to 156 bands (totals for single, small, medium, and large) participating in the 2013 preliminaries. This number increases with the addition of the junior panorama (age 21 and under), which totaled 45 bands (primary, secondary, and non-school) at prelims. With a grand total of 201 bands this season, this type of growth proves that the steelpan movement is alive and well in Trinidad and Tobago.

Part of the growth in the number of panists over the years is due to the fact that many have steelband programs in their schools. This will continue as the Pan in the Classroom Unit, through the Ministry of Education, continues to place Pan teachers and instruments in schools which currently do not have such programs. As the youngsters age and want to continue playing pan, they find themselves in the non-schools category of junior panorama, which also encompasses youngsters who do not have pan in their school.
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Web Posted - Thursday February 14, 2013
When Steel Talks

Bomb & Groovy Soca Steelband Competitions Results - Trinidad and Tobago 2013 Panorama Season

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Trinidad All Stars Steel Orchestra took the top honors at Pan Trinbago’s Northern Region J’Ouvert Bomb Competition. The Pan event which has become a steelpan music staple on Carnival Monday morning was staged at Victoria Square, Port of Spain.

Trinidad All Stars won with “Close To You,” amassing 269 points. They were followed by Musical Gems playing “How Great Thou Art” which gained 261 points, then Harvard Harps scoring 258 with “Alfie.”
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Web Posted - Wednesday February 13, 2013
When Steel Talks

Pan Trinbago releases 50^th Anniversary Panorama DVD & CD

Global - Scintillating music and band performances from the Trinidad & Tobago National Panorama Medium & Large Conventional Steel Orchestra competition have been captured “live” on DVD and CD.

Panorama Finals 2013 – The DVD is produced by Pan Trinbago in collaboration with Advance Dynamics which has already demonstrated its capability to deliver a high-end quality product. The DVD promises to be a collector’s item with sights, sounds, interviews and music never before experienced in digital format. It also promises to fill the void for many Trinbagonians at home and abroad, and those who want a souvenir of national culture and heritage – PAN – revered and displayed like never before. Retail price is TT $300.00.
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Web Posted - Tuesday February 12, 2013
The Trinidad Guardian

Early steelband memories

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Corbeaux Town, Port-of-Spain, is named after the corbeaux who scavenged the garbage from the La Basse and fish market, about where the fire brigade station is now, in the 19th and early to mid-20th century. Family lore has it that cattle from the Main, as the old-timers like my uncle Mike used to call Venezuela, would come ashore, and be slaughtered on the beach, and the entrails left behind for corbeaux to feast upon.

....At one time Dixieland actually stored their few pans under our house, hanging from the wall, until one fell on the younger of my two sisters while I was attempting to beat it, cut her forehead and my mother said, “Out!” and out they went. I have a very clear memory of running into the gallery at Scott Bushe Street one Carnival night to watch a steelband come down Charles Street. In those days, Corbeaux Town children went to bed at 7 pm unless it was a special day, like Christmas or your birthday, when you were allowed up until 8 pm, so it must have been around 9 pm when I first heard the shush shush of shuffling feet and the unmistakable sound of pan playing whatever the road march was.

Scott Bushe was an upstairs house with a long gallery, shaped liked a back-to-front L, with the long handle running parallel to Charles Street and overlooking the little park in front of the fire station. My mother tried to shoo me back inside but someone must have intervened because I was allowed to stay and watch the unique spectacle of one of the very earliest of steelbands parade down my street. The gallery was surrounded by a wooden balustrade, just narrow enough to prevent a small child’s head from poking through, (although my head once got stuck) and it offered a clear view of the small band, perhaps 100 strong, ten or 12 men beating pan, as it slowly came into sight, chipping out of the darkness into the light of the lamppost at the corner, the one where the big boys of the neighbourhood used to lime, and led by someone waving a flag.
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Web Posted - Monday February 11, 2013
When Steel Talks

Phase two of a star called Renegades

by Sandra Blood

Global - “Coming from 2nd-to-last in the semi-final rounds of the Golden Jubilee national Panorama competition in Trinidad, to 3^rd in finals...entering the competition emotionally and psychologically embattled (hoping to maintain its hat trick, and grieving over the burial of their fallen pan peer two days before the finals), Renegades -- against all odds -- truly sent shock waves through many, given the results of semi-finals.” - Sandra Blood
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Web Posted - Monday February 11, 2013
Tuscarawas Bargain Hunter

Dover High School Steel Band prepares to drum up iPan, u listen!

Ohio, USA - The Dover High School Steel Band, under the direction of Joan Wenzel, will create an evening of warm-weather paradise for their annual Pantasia concert. The unique event will be held on Feb. 17, and will be a celebration of the steel pan, the students who give life to this ensemble and the art of the pun, hence the title for this year’s Pantasia event.

The program will showcase the 35 musicians of the steel band, sharing the stage with special guest and clinician Tom Miller. Miller is certainly no stranger to Pantasia as his vast experience as a performer, composer, arranger and educator has made him an integral part of Pantasia for the past 16 years. Through his gifts of teaching and performing with the students, Miller is extending the great tradition of steel pan and helping to create a new tradition and experience for each participant.
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Web Posted -- Sunday February 10, 2013
When Steel Talks

Phase II’s Love Story Trips Up Hat-Trick For All Stars

Global - The genius of Len “Boogsie” Sharpe. An arranger who, worn down by protest and tribute songs in the Panorama, was moved to venerate a fallen colleague in Franklyn Ollivierra, a man who had served Sharpe and Phase II for three decades or so, someone who’d have taken a bullet for the friend he adored. The former Highlanders amplified tenor player during the band’s glory years, Ollivierra now receiving all the attributes of devotion in a love song, and in a fawning sense, fit for a king - Black Stalin the singer with a few strokes of the pen creating his inimitable magic. What he created so eternal and beyond compare, who’s to judge the national love-up everybody gets from his ballad, More Love.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 10, 2013
When Steel Talks

Phase II Pan Groove takes 2013 Panorama championship, Buccooneers Steel Orchestra reigns over medium bands

Global - After several hours of top-notch steelpan music at the historic Queen’s Park Savannah aka “The Big Yard” in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, Phase II Pan Groove emerged as the 2013 Panorama champions, winning TT $1,000,000 in the process. The judges gave the band ‘love’ in return, and in the form of the title, for its performance of “More Love.” It was a bitter-sweet victory for legendary arranger Len “Boogsie” Sharpe without Franklyn Ollivierra, the man he considered his ‘right hand’ for many years. Ollivierra passed away unexpectedly in June 2012, and “Boogsie” had declared that Phase II’s Panorama 2013 performance would be dedicated to Ollivierra.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 10, 2013
When Steel Talks

Complete RESULTS for the Trinidad & Tobago 2013 Panorama

Global - Full results for the Trinidad and Tobago 2013 Panorama are in. Steel Orchestras competed in the medium and large categories at the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad last evening.  Both 2012 defending champions were dethroned.
click for full results

Web Posted - Sunday February 10, 2013
Guyana Chronicle

Republic Bank sponsors Mash Steel Pan Competition -for fifth year
 

Guyana, S.A. - This is the fifth year that Republic Bank has been sponsoring the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport’s Mash Steel Pan Competition.

....This year’s steel pan competition will start with a preliminary under-15 competition which is scheduled to take place at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on February 17, 2013.

Mash Secretariat Coordinator Mr. Lennox Canterbury, speaking at the cheque hand over at the Minister’s office, Main Street said that in addition to the school bands competition, there will be competitions in the categories of Big Bands, Church Bands, Solos – both Adult and Junior, and duets.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 10, 2013
Trinidad Express Newspapers

When Bobby Mohammed and Cavaliers came to town
 

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - In the early days of Panorama, for the semi-finals the bands used to have to start playing at the entrance to the Savannah near Memorial Park, and they would continue along the track, pausing in front of the Grand Stand, before leaving the stage. They used to be judged as they moved along. This is the stage I wish to set for the Panorama semi-finals of 1965. I wasn't there for it, but that is beside the point, because what happened on the track that semi-final Sunday was the arrival of Guinness Cavaliers and the legend of Lennox "Bobby" Mohammed.

I am rekindling that moment in history because I have a mortal fear that there are citizens who are pan lovers today who may never have heard about the band and its great captain, and worse, never have heard the rendition of the tune they played that day, which was "Mas" by Lord Melody, known since as "Melody Mas".

Now in 1965 the band I was supporting was Southern Marines. If you were from Marabella as I was then, that is who you supported. Guinness Cavaliers was from San Fernando, a new band that was a splinter from Gondoliers. The captain (and tuner) of Southern Marines was the legendary Milton Lyons (Squeezer), who in his own right had won the national ping pong soloist competition in one of the great steelband music festivals held at Queen's Hall.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 10, 2013
Trinidad Express Newspapers

Controversy mars first Panorama in 1963

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - It was the economic depression in Trinidad in the 1930s and the latent musical talent of young Afro-Trinidadians that gave birth to the steelpan as a unique musical instrument in Trinidad and Tobago which was to provide in later years musical entertainment to the world.

For many years, steelband music was regarded as music of the unprivileged who were debarred from self-expression because of social and economic disability.

But during the period 1938 to 1945, steelband music emerged in full force, replacing bamboo drums with bits and pieces of metal capable of producing non-melodic but highly rhythmic sounds.

Faced with outright condemnation of African drums, conch shells and horns, the musicians turned to other percussion forms of instruments. The trunks of bamboos were used. Different lengths produced different sounds. This invention was known as tambour bamboo or the bamboo orchestra. From the tambour bamboo, the steelband music emerged.

....The first Panorama in Port of Spain in February 1963 took place amidst controversy between Invaders and the judges.

Invaders, a leading band from Port of Spain, played first at the competition with two out of three judges present.

When they were unplaced, they protested vigorously, claiming one of the judges was not present to hear their rendition. The organisers of the competition replied by stating that the band began to play before the scheduled time.
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Web Posted - Sunday February 10, 2013
Peoria Journal Star

Percussion group Callaloo brings steel pan to fore

Illinois, USA -  Mateusz Koszarek said he wished he could have gotten out of his seat and danced.

His thoughts echoed the sentiments of many audience members at the performance of world fusion percussion ensemble Callaloo on Sunday at Bradley University’s Dingeldine Music Center.

The urge to dance was provoked by a sense of spirit and cheerfulness that pervaded the hall from 3 to 4:30 p.m.

.... As a world fusion group, Callaloo never aspires toward one authentic sound, but borrows from a variety of influences, according to [Scott] Johnson.

He strives to bring the steel pan away from its conventional role.

“People tend to think of steel pan as just the party instrument. I’m trying to get into it being more expressive — an expression of my different feelings and emotions. Not everything we did was happy and lighthearted. Some of it was more serious, or more beautiful and gentle. Some of it was more aggressive. I’m trying to bring out more emotions and communicate that to the audience.”
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Web Posted - Saturday February 9, 2013
The Trinidad Guardian

Top arranger White joins forces with Pioneers for 2013

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - During semis of Panorama 2013, few may have noticed arranger Andre White hidden in the back of the Tamana Pioneers playing drums. However, this young arranger has already won Panorama in both New York and London and is quietly making inroads in T&T.

A multifaceted pan performer, arranger and jazz soloist, White has had little time to enjoy the triumph of his latest Brooklyn Carnival victory in September. Since May, he has been composing for his own jazz quartet, gigged around the Boston and New York area, and started recording three different album projects ranging from straight jazz, with his quartet, to more R&B to fusion and reggae.
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Web Posted - Friday February 8, 2013
When Steel Talks

It’s Five Straight for Arima Golden Symphony! Small Steel Orchestra Finals - RESULTS

Global - The nippy night breeze was warmed by the fiery performances laid down by eleven steel orchestras as they vied for the 2013 title of Panorama champs in the small conventional steel orchestra category at Skinner’s Park in San Fernando, South Trinidad on February 7. The bands took the stage after their counterparts in the Single Pan band leg of competition - seventeen in all - completed their finals round.

The musical spotlight was first cast upon Fascinators Pan Symphony around 11:35 p.m. as they delivered their tune of choice, “Tell Dem,” as arranged by Daryl Reid. The band led off what was to be a colorful parade of steel orchestras with eagle eyes on the top prize of TT $400,000.00.
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Web Posted - Friday February 8, 2013
When Steel Talks

San Juan East Side Symphony retains title - Single Pan Finals - RESULTS

Global - Mother Nature delivered a beautiful evening for the Finals in the Single Pan Band and Small Conventional Steel Orchestra categories of the 2013 Trinidad & Tobago National Panorama on February 7. Held at Skinner’s Park in San Fernando, South Trinidad, the competition got underway about forty-five minutes after the 7:00 p.m. advertised start.

Nostrand Symphony playing “Ethel” was the first of seventeen Single Pan bands taking the stage.
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Web Posted - Thursday February 7, 2013
When Steel Talks

2013 Groovy Soca Steelband Competition
 

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. -  Pan Trinbago will host the first-ever Groovy Soca Steelband Competition on Carnival Monday (February 10) evening from 6:00 p.m. to 12 midnight.

The competition will see participating steelbands perform any original groovy soca composition at ninety (90) beats per minute. Bands must play the tune on the move for approximately four to six minutes. Each band will be entitled to perform with a supporting posse (non-playing) not exceeding 50 persons complete with flags, rags and banners.
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Web Posted - Wednesday February 6, 2013
When Steel Talks

Happy Birthday, Bertie Marshall (Oh, even when he was alive he could care less)

by Dalton Narine
 

Global - Les Slater, chair of the T&T Folk Arts Institute in New York and a former Highlanders arranger, is hard-pressed to bring up much of his childhood without including “big brother” Bertie Marshall. The emblematic tuner served as the force behind the revamped steel band that Kim Loy Wong started more than half a century ago and left dismantled when he immigrated to New York in 1958.

Slater is paying tribute to the demanding innovator and leader, who would have turned 77 today had he not fallen to a stroke last October in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

“Growing up meant Bertie was always around,” said Slater of his childhood neighbor and mentor.
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Web Posted - Wednesday February 6, 2013
The Trinidad Guardian

Cyril Khamai, global pan pioneer
 

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - As the unmistakable sound of pan continues to spread across the farthest reaches of the globe, it is perhaps worth pausing to take stock of these early pan pioneers. Beyond the members of Taspo and the various national steelbands, the stories of many early pan pioneers have not been told. Ironically, these lesser-known pan pioneers are responsible for taking pan worldwide.

Every year at Notting Hill Carnival, you’ll see one such early pan pioneer. A small man with a big smile, a panman, the scratcherman for Nostalgia, that’s Cyril Khamai, a quiet man with a gentle presence. Pan has played an integral part of Khamai’s life since he was a child in Trinidad. Chasing a dream, Khamai went to the UK in 1957 and has been playing, building, tuning, and teaching pan in his new home ever since. Beyond the UK, he has travelled the globe from Russia to Hong Kong and all over Europe, playing pan with a number of different bands.

Khamai started playing pan with the Free French Steelband in San Fernando, whose leader at the time was Theo Stephens, who had been a member of Taspo.
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Web Posted - Wednesday February 6, 2013
Chicago Tribune

Acclaimed NIU Steelband Plans March 2 Concert at Norris Cultural Arts Center
 

Illinois, USA - Now in its 40th season, the internationally acclaimed NIU Steelband will return for its third concert appearance at the Norris Cultural Arts Center, St. Charles, at 7:30 p.m. on March 2. The ensemble, led by Liam Teague, will present an eclectic program spanning a variety of musical genres.
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Web Posted - Wednesday February 6, 2013
MSUM News

Music professor returns from performance in Trinidad
 

Minnesota, USA - Dr. Kenyon Williams, Professor of Music at MSUM, recently returned from two weeks abroad in Trinidad as a part of his spring sabbatical. While in Trinidad, he performed in an historic ensemble, the 2013 birdsong Steel Orchestra as a part of the island’s annual Panorama competition. Panorama, known by steelpan lovers as the “Superbowl” of pan, is an island-wide competition involving hundreds of steel bands, thousands of performers, and live radio and television broadcasts across the nation.
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Web Posted - Wednesday February 6, 2013
When Steel Talks

“One for Bertie” by Helon Francis celebrates the late Bertie Marshall in song...
 

Global - “One for Bertie” is the first attempt by Helon Francis at singing a song composed for the Pan, and it is in tribute to the late Pan icon, panist master tuner and builder, the late Bertie Marshall. “One For Bertie” features music by Earl Brooks and lyrics by Alvin Daniell.  The track is one of the ‘Pan Songs’ for the 2013 panorama season.

Today, February 6, 2013 Bertie Marshall would have been 77 years old; he is being celebrated today on When Steel Talks.
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Web Posted - Wednesday February 6, 2013
The Trinidad Guardian

 Crowd schooled in calypso of yesteryear

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - World-renowned jazz pan player Andy Narell and his band put on the University of Calypso at the Learning Resource Centre at UWI, St Augustine campus last week.

The show was a resounding success as stellar acts Lord Superior, Relator and David Rudder received standing ovations from the packed auditorium.

It was an evening of old-time calypso, comedy and sing-along for lovers of calypso, pan, jazz and good old-fashioned entertainment.
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Web Posted - Tuesday February 5, 2013
When Steel Talks

Where is Panorama at 50 years?

by Sandra Blood
 

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - ....Lingering in the minds of the pan enthusiasts are other burning questions as the race climaxes: What is this Panorama milestone first prize? How many notches up will pan move following this era, given the next 50-year short to medium-term plan? When would we see an indication from the organizers characterizing a 50th Anniversary? Would the track be beautifully adorned? Will the stage or stands be?
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Web Posted - Monday February 4, 2013
Tillah Willah

Police and the Pan pushers
 

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - ....I’ve been here before. The last time I remember the police being so hognorant at Panorama was when Papa Patos was at the height of his unpopularity. The Guard and Emergency Branch were on a rampage. One scraped my arm and tried to grab my camera because I was trying to get evidence of his brutality.

Since then, pan and other people-centred elements of the Carnival have continued to die slow painful deaths. Even as the season gives birth to new children. I do not join the new life in the Greens. The new life that does not have any connection to its past. We are on the track to celebrate the life that once was. Dragging our band’s pans towards the stage.

The belligerent cobos swoop down. Assault rifles and batons at the ready. The moon shines on. We pull the racks forward, breaking into a run at the bottom of the ramp to get enough momentum to take them up and onto the stage.
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Web Posted - Monday February 4, 2013
9&10 News

Petoskey Steel Drum Band Heading for Mardi Gras

Michigan, USA - Sixteen years ago band director Barry Bennett decided he wanted his drum line at Petoskey High School to have a unique sound.

....The Petoskey Steel Drum Band is wrapping up practice this week preparing for a trip to New Orleans, LA where they will march in three Mardi Gras parades this weekend.
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Web Posted - Monday February 4, 2013
When Steel Talks

Success Stars Pan Sounds, St. Francois Girls’ Steel Orchestra and St. Margaret’s Boys Represent - 2013 Junior National Panorama Results
 

Global - Success Stars Pan Sounds, St. Francois Girls’ Steel Orchestra and St. Margaret’s Boys all repeated as Trinidad & Tobago Junior National Panorama champions in the Non-school, Secondary school and Primary school categories, respectively, retaining titles won in 2012. These three bands bested their fellow competitors following more than ten hours of steelpan music in a roster which featured at least three dozen steel orchestras.

Continuing in their tradition of going to competition performing an original composition was a formula that worked once again for Success Stars – captained by Louis Rogers – out of Laventille when they clinched the Non-schools title playing “Something to Celebrate.”
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Web Posted - Friday February 1, 2013
When Steel Talks

Junior National Panorama Finals Set - Order of Appearance: Trinidad & Tobago Steelband Panorama 2013
 

Global - Thirty-eight steel orchestras will compete in the Junior National Panorama at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain, on Sunday 3 February 2013 from 9:00 a.m. The competition is staged by The Ministry of Education’s Multicultural Music Program Unit (formerly Pan in the Classroom Unit), Pan in Schools Coordinating Unit, and Pan Trinbago.

The bands will be judged according to categories i.e. Primary Schools, Secondary Schools and Non-schools.
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Web Posted - Friday February 1, 2013
When Steel Talks

Arima Steel Band Competition Back on Track for 2013 - Trinidad & Tobago Steelband Panorama
 

Global - The Arima Carnival Committee in collaboration with the Eastern Region of Pan Trinbago presents its 2013 Panorama Competition on Monday 4 February 2013 at the Arima Basketball Court, Hollis Avenue in Arima, Trinidad. The competition starts promptly at 7:00 p.m., with an admission fee of TT $40.00.

Twelve Single Pan steelbands from the immediate Arima neighbourhood and surrounding environs will be part of the first segment of the two-part music showcase.
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Web Posted - Friday February 1, 2013
Trinidad Express Newspapers

‘The Greens’ must be destroyed

Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - The Greens must be destroyed. I'm clear of it. This is despite the fact that I spent most of Sunday there—so I know of what I speak.

It was carnal. Completely. And I needed that—but that was all it ever was and ever will be. It was also empty, devoid of "Spirit"—people wandered around lost, posing, waiting for something to happen that never did. This is what happens when you detach a people from the ritual that sustains them. In the absence of culture, they need substances—alcohol and gimmicks—to bring them to something resembling liberation. The death of Carnival is in that impulse. This is the same culture that overtook European "carnivals" from the 1300s, resulting in their death. When Carnival becomes a drunken orgy, it can be competed against by any distraction. Nothing, however, can compete against ritual and belief. Our question then: how do we make those-who-we-have-lost believe again?

I don't know any other country in the world that abandons its next generation of customers, its youth and its inheritance to a competitor.
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Web Posted
When Steel Talks - Special

Champion Panorama Tunes of Trinidad and Tobago

Global - A critical component to winning any panorama competition is the song the orchestras choose to use as the basis of their panorama arrangements. Over the years these songs have inspired classic panorama arrangements. When Steel Talks invites you to take a look at and listen to, these famed tunes which have played more than just a cursory part in the history of Pan, and the lives of the players and fans.
click to hear and/or view