Sean Nero

"The steel­pan is my life," de­clares young mu­si­cian Akua Lei­th.

He's the young arranger who thrilled mu­sic afi­ciona­dos with an imag­i­na­tive in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Olatun­ji Year­wood's Wild and Won­der­ful at last year's Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. It was his de­but as an arranger as well as a com­pe­ti­tion first for the Trin­i­ty All Gen­er­a­tions Steel Or­ches­tra (Tags). The group ap­peared in the Un­der 21 cat­e­go­ry of Ju­nior Panora­ma, plac­ing third. He had goose­bumps while in the spot­light de­spite hav­ing 14 years ex­pe­ri­ence, but in re­flec­tion said he'd have it no oth­er way. "When I'm on stage my anx­i­ety lev­el builds up like it's my first time. Play­ing the pan acts like my coun­sel­lor. It helps me to ease stress and make right de­ci­sions," Lei­th said. One such de­ci­sion was to bow out of the Ju­nior Panora­ma ring be­cause of his stud­ies.

He al­so turned down a job as drill­mas­ter for reign­ing Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on (medi­um) Sforza­ta Steel Or­ches­tra. Lei­th, 27, is a fi­nal year stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine cam­pus read­ing for his bach­e­lor of arts de­gree in mu­sic and has to com­plete a project crit­i­cal to him grad­u­at­ing. With class­es re­sum­ing smack in the mid­dle of Car­ni­val, Lei­th thought it im­pos­si­ble to man­age both suc­cess­ful­ly. He still is com­mit­ted to his craft, how­ev­er. He said: "Mu­sic is my best friend. The best is when I can make an au­di­ence en­joy what I do, send­ing them off re­freshed and with smiles; know­ing to my­self that I've made some­one's day. My play­ing is so deep I cry some­times." Af­ter UWI life, he hopes to at­tend North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty, Chica­go, to pur­sue his mas­ters in mu­sic and then his doc­tor­ate, fol­low­ing which he wants to es­tab­lish mu­sic scad­e­mies in the USA, Eu­rope and T&T.

"If it wasn't for mu­sic I would have been lost. Mu­sic gives me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to progress," he said. "I hope the steel­pan will be ac­cept­ed in every house­hold in T&T, as the na­tion­al in­stru­ment. We will all know how to play it, care for it, and re­spect it. In­no­va­tions are al­ways wel­comed, but the his­to­ry of the pan must live for­ev­er." A res­i­dent of Up­per Cas­cade Val­ley Road, Cas­cade, Lei­th nev­er liked pan, but loved bas­ket­ball and crick­et. The first child born to Dawn Lei­th and Der­rick Thomas, he nev­er found the sound em­a­nat­ing from the pan as pleas­ing. When the pan bug caught him his ac­tive in­ter­est in sports fiz­zled. Lei­th is some­what of a celebri­ty at home cit­ing that his fam­i­ly is coy. But they are al­ways amazed when im­ages of him ap­pear in the news­pa­pers or tele­vi­sion. His suc­cess thrills them. His be­ing the first fam­i­ly mem­ber to at­tend uni­ver­si­ty wowed them. He looks for­ward to ex­pe­ri­enc­ing sim­i­lar sen­sa­tions when his son Asayeis pur­sues high­er ed­u­ca­tion. So does Asayeis moth­er Dian­dra Pat­ter­son.

More than a decade af­ter Lei­th em­braced the steel­pan he con­sid­ers him­self for­tu­nate to have met those peo­ple who im­pact­ed his life for the bet­ter. Dion Forbes Joseph, Seion Gomez and Jes­sel Mur­ray are names of mu­si­cians that eas­i­ly come to mind. While a mem­ber of South East/Prison Youth Club un­der Joseph's su­per­vi­sion Lei­th said, the band em­braced him dur­ing a dark pe­ri­od in his life. Joseph in­tro­duced Lei­th to Gomez. Lei­th proud­ly refers to Gomez as his big broth­er and friend. Gomez con­tin­ued the nur­tur­ing process by rec­om­mend­ing Lei­th to Dr Phae­dra Pierre, di­rec­tor of Tags, a mu­sic de­vel­op­ment out­fit he (Lei­th) would ul­ti­mate­ly rise to hold the post of mu­si­cal di­rec­tor in. Lei­th joined a steel­band called Sadi­ki Sticks On Steel where Gomez was a mem­ber. They toured to­geth­er.

As a well con­sti­tut­ed mem­ber of Sadi­ki, Lei­th said, his skills were honed while he was pushed to new mu­si­cal and per­form­ing bound­aries. He then dis­cov­ered his soloist skills and played at high pro­file gigs. Lei­th said: "I learnt that I'm as good as I look. The band im­pact­ed my life in dif­fer­ent ways. I love those guys." UWI lec­tur­er Mur­ray is his idol. Mur­ray in­ci­den­tal­ly is Lei­th's boss and mu­sic di­rec­tor/con­duc­tor at the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra (NSSO). Lei­th has just be­gun to learn to play and com­pose on the pi­ano. Re­al life ex­pe­ri­ences fu­el his in­spi­ra­tion to com­pose, but he's not brave enough to pub­lish any of his works in the gen­res of reg­gae and R&B. When it comes to ar­rang­ing, he's "very com­pet­i­tive" and us­es "friend­ly treats," as mo­ti­va­tion to guide his work. Nat­u­ral­ly, he looks for­ward to com­pet­ing in the Panora­ma big league to­geth­er with or against big name-bands.