Sean Nero

A ran­dom vis­it to the pa­n­yard of four-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Har­monites Steel Or­ches­tra, by a Cana­di­an faith-based group, led to a spon­ta­neous steel­band work­shop and per­for­mance on Ju­ly 18, that caused the vis­i­tors to re­joice.

The venue was Har­monites' head­quar­ters, lo­cat­ed at Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way and Mor­vant Junc­tion, where parish­ioners from the Cen­tre Street Church in Al­ber­ta, Cana­da, said to be the largest in Cal­gary, re­ceived a tasty pan treat, which team leader Cliff Wiebe de­scribed as "fan­tas­tic!"

Band­leader Shelford Lawrence wel­comed the vis­i­tors be­fore pan­nists pro­vid­ed them with an ex­hil­a­rat­ing, rudi­men­ta­ry pan ed­u­ca­tion ses­sion and pre­sen­ta­tion.

The field trip in­clud­ed a pan-mak­ing and tun­ing seg­ment con­duct­ed by Cur­tis Ren­nie. The vis­it to T&T by the Cen­tre Street Church wor­ship­pers was a mis­sion to help in re­form­ing prison in­mates, to part­ner with lo­cal church­es and re­fur­bish those in need, while con­duct­ing eye-care clin­ics in such com­mu­ni­ties as Biche, Rio Claro and Mor­vant/ Laven­tille. The group's pres­ence in the lat­ter dis­trict was un­der the pa­tron­age of Don­na Cox, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Laven­tille East/Mor­vant.

Wiebe stressed that crit­i­cal aim of the vis­it was to learn about this coun­try and ex­pe­ri­ence its cul­ture. But their in­ter­ac­tion with the steel­pan–the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment of T&T–proved a big­ger treat than they ex­pect­ed. "You can feel and hear the soul in that in­stru­ment when the guys were play­ing," said Wiebe, smil­ing. "Even watch­ing the mu­si­cians play 'em, you know that it's some­thing more in what they're do­ing. They are pas­sion­ate about it and you can sense the spir­i­tu­al as­pect in what they're do­ing."

The pan mu­sic ex­pe­ri­ence re­newed Wiebe's be­lief that mu­sic is tru­ly uni­ver­sal. He said in Cana­da, stu­dents are show­ing greater affin­i­ty to mu­sic of all gen­res all the time. "This is one phe­nom­e­nal way to con­nect our stu­dents from Cana­da with the peo­ple of T&T, through mu­sic," he said. Re­fer­ring to the im­pact of Har­monites' per­for­mance, he said: "Watch­ing them all, they were en­gag­ing each oth­er. It just breaks down any bar­ri­ers and starts build­ing that re­la­tion­ship. That's what we were here to do."

Lawrence, leader of Har­monites, ex­plained that the church-based group ex­pe­ri­enced the love play­ers have for the mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. "What we try to do is keep it go­ing so we could have the youths go in the right di­rec­tion. "The pa­n­yard is a bet­ter way to go in life. It's bet­ter than go­ing on the block. They can come to the pa­n­yard and learn some­thing pos­i­tive."