Sean Nero

Reign­ing Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra has been left out of Gov­ern­ment's award of Gen­e­sis-Pans (G-Pans) to top five con­ven­tion­al steel or­ches­tras, but TCL Group Skif­fle Bunch, which did not se­cure a place in this year's com­pe­ti­tion, is in re­ceipt of the in­stru­ment, the Guardian has learnt. Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs, con­firmed last week that his band, Skif­fle Bunch, had the G-Pan. He said the band al­ready has one G-bass, but his pan­nists are over­whelmed over the band's ac­qui­si­tion of two G-bass and two dou­ble-sec­onds. Panadigm In­no­va­tions Ltd and the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs pre­sent­ed in­stru­ments to Wit­co Des­per­a­does, BP Rene­gades, Neal and Massy Trinidad All Stars, Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove and Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus, as part of a Be­ta Test Pro­gramme at the Ca­lyp­so Room, Crowne Plaza Ho­tel, lo­cat­ed on Wright­son Road in Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day. Par­tic­i­pat­ing bands will work with Panadigm In­no­va­tions and re­port on the in­te­gra­tion of G-Pans in­to the tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly of in­stru­ments un­der their re­spec­tive ban­ners.

No ex­cep­tion was made for the reign­ing champ Sil­ver Stars, al­though it is cus­tom­ary for the vic­tor be to be in­clud­ed in all ma­jor events dur­ing its reign, Re­grel­lo re­called. "Skif­fle Bunch was the first guinea pig in this project. The G-Pans were stored in Skif­fle Bunch and tak­en to tuner Bertram Kel­man, when he was avail­able to work on them," he said. Con­tact­ed, Ed­win Pouchet, leader of Sil­ver Stars, de­clined com­ment. Con­scious that the se­lec­tion of bands for this ex­per­i­ment would spark con­tro­ver­sy, Dr Bri­an Copeland of Panadigm cleared the air. He said he de­vel­oped a sci­en­tif­ic for­mu­la that ranked or­ches­tras that cap­tured the top three spots in the his­to­ry of Panora­ma the most. The in­for­ma­tion, ob­tained from Pan Trin­ba­go's Web site, gave Des­per­a­does the edge as group leader with 22 points, while Rene­gades and Ex­o­dus tied in fourth with 15 marks.

Re­grel­lo said: "We had a lim­it­ed num­ber of in­stru­ments and we are in a rush to do test­ing ahead of re­ceiv­ing the patent. "The bands that got are not cast in stone and over time more will be in­clud­ed." Pan Trin­ba­go sec­re­tary Richard Forteau con­firmed Pan Trin­ba­go's knowl­edge that Skif­fle Bunch was fur­nished with G-Pans long be­fore Tues­day's pre­sen­ta­tion. "Some­one saw the com­mo­tion when G-Pans were be­ing de­liv­ered to Skif­fle Bunch's pa­n­yard some time ago, and called us at Pan Trin­ba­go. But we can't tell Panadigm who to give the in­stru­ments to for test­ing. "They have giv­en it to five top bands. We are now in the process to work out a sys­tem for small­er bands to re­ceive in­stru­ments. Not on­ly big bands have rel­e­vance in this ex­er­cise," he said. Forteau added that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had in­di­cat­ed some time ago that he (Man­ning) would give pans to Skif­fle Bunch, since Re­grel­lo was a ma­jor part of the G-Pan project, even be­fore he be­came a PNM Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and ul­ti­mate­ly Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs.

Rene­gades pan­nist An­drew Charles per­forms with mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra un­der the di­rec­tion of Jes­sel Mur­ray.