Steelpan Arranger

Aviel Scanterbury

Aviel Scanterbury

Aviel Scanterbury - Tunapuna Tipica, birdsong, Arima Angel Harp, Bishop Anstey & Trinity College East (B.A.T.C.E.) Steel
Panorama Championships
Trinidad & Tobago -

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Aviel Kellile Scanterbury was born on the 18th of April 1994 to Wilbur and Betty Scanterbury. He was raised in the community of La Horquetta and attended the St. Mary’s Anglican School. Aviel has always had a passion for music for as long as he could remember as his father would always play different genres of music, especially jazz, at home. Aviel started to play the steelpan at age 4 under the mentorship of Gary Straker. As a child he played at a lot of concerts and competitions both as a soloist and as a member of the Gary Straker’s Pan School where in 2001 he received the Player of the Year award.

It wasn’t until secondary school when he started taking music seriously as a potential career. From Form 3 onwards, he was influenced a lot by his music teachers and owes a great deal of respect to his CSEC music teacher Anthony Adams for steering him in that direction. It was at the secondary school level where he started coming into his own as a steelpan player where he was voted best instrumentalist at the WeTalent competition in St. James in 2008 and 2009. In 2010 while being a member of his school’s steelband BATCE (Bishop Anstey & Trinity College East) Steel, he won the Nation Music Festival in his category and also the Pan in the Classroom Steelband Music Festival in the solo, duet and quartet categories. It was also at secondary school where he started arranging. He would arrange music for the school’s steel orchestra and he arranged in his first Panorama in 2011 alongside Denzel Headley where the band placed 3rd.

After secondary school, Aviel went to the UWI (University of the West Indies) where he graduated with his BA in Musical Arts with First Class Honours in 2016. At the UWI he was a member of UWI Arts Steel and started being a musician for hire. He continued arranging for his secondary school band and also arranged for Longdenville Claytones Steel Orchestra at the 2013 edition of the National Steelband festival in the ensemble category, guiding them to their first finals round in nine years in all competitions. He also began teaching and arranging at birdsong Academy arranging alongside Nicholas Jones in 2015, where the band placed 4th in the non school’s category of Junior Panorama. While arranging for BATCE Steel, the band placed 2nd on two occasions at Junior panorama in 2015 and 2016. Also in 2016 Aviel became the musical director of the La Horquetta Pan Academy, arranging for them in their first ever junior Panorama effort placing 7th at the finals.

Aviel has a Certificate in Music Technology at UTT (The University of Trinidad and Tobago). He also started to arrange for Arima Angel Harps Steel Orchestra where he still serves as the arranger. He then went on to pursue a Masters of Music at GMU Virginia where he graduated in 2019 in jazz studies.

Aviel is currently a musician at the National Steel Symphony Orchestra, talent coordinator for the web show “The Lightbox” and Director of Pomegranate Studios.

Outside of music, Aviel enjoys being a father to his son and is also a huge football fan.



 
 


 
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