Sweet steel­pan mu­sic flowed through the halls of Crowne Plaza as young mu­si­cians demon­strat­ed their con­fi­dence and ca­pa­bil­i­ties at the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny for va­ca­tion work­shops in mu­sic spon­sored by en­er­gy com­pa­ny BP Trinidad and To­ba­go (bpTT).Ad­min­is­tered by the Pan in Schools Co­or­di­nat­ing Coun­cil (PSCC), the work­shops pro­vid­ed in-depth tute­lage from high­ly qual­i­fied tu­tors in the ar­eas of mu­sic com­po­si­tion, panora­ma ar­rang­ing and pan play­ing tech­niques to over 80 par­tic­i­pants.

Ron­da Fran­cis, Cor­po­rate Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty man­ag­er, bpTT said: "We de­vel­oped this pro­gramme with the PSCC sev­en years ago and we've been proud to see it has grown and blos­somed. This pro­gramme brings to­geth­er ed­u­ca­tion, arts and cul­ture-ar­eas that bpTT is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing. We are as­sist­ing young peo­ple in lay­ing the foun­da­tion for the de­vel­op­ment of this art form that em­bod­ies the best that they and our na­tion have to of­fer."

The mu­sic work­shops ex­posed par­tic­i­pants to skills train­ing in­clud­ing mu­sic soft­ware, ex­plor­ing and ma­nip­u­lat­ing chord pro­gres­sions and voic­ing to achieve dif­fer­ent moods for mu­si­cal phras­es, mo­tifs and com­po­si­tions. One of the biggest ad­van­tages was that stu­dents de­vel­oped a com­po­si­tion port­fo­lio that will be used as part of their mu­sic stud­ies for ex­am­i­na­tions. The work­shops al­so sought to ex­pand un­der­stand­ing of the steel­pan as a dy­nam­ic in­stru­ment.

PSCC pres­i­dent An­dre Moses high­light­ed the ex­cel­lence demon­strat­ed by the mu­sic stu­dents. "Since the de­vel­op­ment of the steel­pan, the ques­tion has arisen about what spe­cif­ic kind of mu­sic the in­stru­ment plays.These young mu­si­cians have found in­spi­ra­tion and de­vel­oped their own com­po­si­tions for the in­stru­ment. They are an­swer­ing this ques­tion and are trans­form­ing the mu­si­cal land­scape and are mak­ing us ex­treme­ly proud," Moses said.

This year, work­shops were host­ed dur­ing Ju­ly and Au­gust at Na­pari­ma Girls High School and St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary School. Cater­ing main­ly for stu­dents en­rolled in the CSEC Mu­sic pro­gramme, par­tic­i­pa­tion was al­so ex­tend­ed to adults, in­clud­ing mu­sic teach­ers.Trevor Reid, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, Pan Trin­ba­go, ex­pressed his plea­sure with the over­all struc­ture and suc­cess of the work­shops.

"The PSCC is do­ing great work in nur­tur­ing the fu­ture of our na­tion­al in­stru­ment and bpTT has al­ways been a stal­wart sup­port­er of steel­pan as demon­strat­ed by their sup­port of Rene­gades over the years. To­geth­er they are play­ing the fu­ture of steel­pan ex­act­ly where it be­longs-in the hands of our young peo­ple," Reid ex­plained. Said Kyle Sam­lals­ingh, a stu­dent of Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, who was one of the top per­form­ing stu­dents in the panora­ma ar­rang­ing work­shop: "Per­son­al­ly, I want a ca­reer in mu­sic and I hope to pur­sue high­er ed­u­ca­tion at the pres­ti­gious Berklee Col­lege Mu­sic in the Unit­ed States.

"The ex­po­sure we got here in terms of arrange­ment tools and tech­niques was first class. I know that what we learned will give us a def­i­nite ad­van­tage in all of our fu­ture mu­si­cal pur­suits. PSCC and bpTT have giv­en us a great gift-the po­ten­tial for an un­lim­it­ed fu­ture."