SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

“My as­pi­ra­tion was to be­come a fire­fight­er. How­ev­er, my moth­er con­stant­ly re­mind­ed me that what­ev­er God had planned for my life, no one, not even my­self, could pre­vent it from com­ing to fruition. When I was younger, on many oc­ca­sions she played Panora­ma pieces to help me fall asleep.”

To­day, mul­ti-award-win­ning Re­shaun Williams, at 26, con­tin­ues to make his moth­er proud. He’s the reign­ing 21-and-Un­der Panora­ma cham­pi­on with the Shell In­vaders Youth Steel Or­ches­tra (IYSO).

Dur­ing a 2012 Sum­mer Camp, Williams be­came a mem­ber of IYSO just be­fore be­gin­ning sec­ondary school in 2013 at Trin­i­ty Col­lege in Mo­ka (TCM); he be­came their arranger in 2016; joined the se­nior band In­vaders Steel Or­ches­tra (ISO) in 2019 up­on grad­u­at­ing from col­lege, where he earned Grades 1-7 in mu­sic and, with­in the Cari­com coun­tries, placed sixth in CAPE mu­sic ex­am­i­na­tions.

He al­so at­tained a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Dig­i­tal Me­dia Arts Spe­cial­iza­tion in Mu­sic Pro­duc­tion and Sound En­gi­neer­ing from the UTT, won the NSS Mu­sic Fes­ti­val as a pan soloist and ICP School Pan Quiz (2016), and was a two-time cham­pi­on and first run­ner-up at San­fest with TCM En­sem­ble. As Panora­ma co-arranger for IYSO, he se­cured sev­enth place in 2018 and was cham­pi­on the next year.

Born on De­cem­ber 12, 2000, to ac­com­plished In­vaders pan­nists De­siree My­ers and Rudolph Williams, Williams told We Life and Cul­ture he had the priv­i­lege of grow­ing up with­in the vi­brant at­mos­phere of the pa­n­yard.

He be­gan play­ing pan at three years old.

“Many years be­fore my birth, my god­fa­ther and men­tor, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe (DLitt), proph­e­sied to my moth­er that I would one day be­come an arranger. My oth­er men­tor, Ardin Her­bert—for­mer arranger for ISO—echoed this same sen­ti­ment. As I at­tend­ed pri­ma­ry school, my moth­er re­it­er­at­ed these pre­dic­tions, but I nev­er tru­ly be­lieved them. Every Sat­ur­day, my cousin, my fa­ther, and I at­tend­ed class­es where I be­gan to learn mu­sic the­o­ry with Nevin “Teach” Saun­ders and Joan­na Shortt. They were in­stru­men­tal in de­vel­op­ing my tech­ni­cal skills for the steel­pan, as well as en­hanc­ing my mu­sic read­ing and writ­ing abil­i­ties, all by the age of eight years old,” re­called Williams.

Ear­ly Panora­ma ex­pe­ri­ence

In 2010, Williams, then nine “with lim­it­ed pa­tience,” ex­pe­ri­enced his ini­tial Panora­ma and a fa­ther who be­lieved he was not yet ready, but with a re­solve to prove him wrong, he ded­i­cat­ed his en­tire year to boost­ing his skills. “I even­tu­al­ly learned more chro­mat­ics and im­proved my tech­nique. This com­mit­ment paid off, and the fol­low­ing year, I fi­nal­ly had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play in Panora­ma with the se­nior band. It was an ex­tra­or­di­nary ex­pe­ri­ence, but de­spite be­ing the youngest play­er fac­ing a whole new set of chal­lenges, all the ‘aun­ties’ and ‘un­cles’ in the band were de­light­ed to see me achieve this mile­stone from all the ef­fort I had put in. This ex­pe­ri­ence taught me that any­thing is pos­si­ble once you set your mind to it.”

Dur­ing Williams’ sec­ondary school years, he “met new pan friends and teach­ers.” Tu­tors Michelle Hug­gins-Watts, Malaina Mof­fett, Akeel Hen­ry and Amelia Top­pin come in for high praise.

“Many of my life­long friends recog­nised my pas­sion for mu­sic and con­sis­tent­ly en­cour­aged me to ex­plore var­i­ous av­enues, such as com­pos­ing and pro­duc­ing. This is when I dis­cov­ered my love for craft­ing beats and in­stru­men­tals across di­verse gen­res. My in­volve­ment ex­tend­ed be­yond just play­ing the pan. I al­so be­came an in­flu­en­tial fig­ure be­hind many songs that are heard to­day. I’m proud to have re­ceived a Bill­board mu­sic plaque for a num­ber two reg­gae al­bum and to have been Gram­my-nom­i­nat­ed for an al­bum I con­tributed to. I am pro­found­ly grate­ful to God for be­stow­ing this gift up­on me—a gift I con­tin­ue to cher­ish and de­vel­op.”

Most chal­leng­ing mo­ment

Williams said his most chal­leng­ing mo­ment ar­rived in 2018 when he was un­ex­pect­ed­ly tasked with ar­rang­ing his first Panora­ma piece. He said the chal­lenge was com­pound­ed by his need to bal­ance ar­rang­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with school­work, as he was al­so prepar­ing for CXC ex­am­i­na­tions that same year, but he suc­cess­ful­ly man­aged both. He sub­se­quent­ly com­plet­ed his Low­er Six ex­am­i­na­tions while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ar­rang­ing for IYO, along­side co-arranger and god­broth­er, Jalen Charles, and emerged as 21-and-Un­der Panora­ma cham­pi­ons.

“I was as­ton­ished as I had nev­er be­fore felt the ex­hil­a­ra­tion of be­com­ing a Panora­ma cham­pi­on. Every­one was im­mense­ly proud of our work, and even my school pub­licly con­grat­u­lat­ed me dur­ing an as­sem­bly in front of the en­tire stu­dent body.”

Williams said he had to prove his worth, which showed up in his con­sis­ten­cy as a so­lo arranger.

Ar­rang­ing the win­ning 2026 Panora­ma Mas­ter­piece: Band from Space

“I aimed to cre­ate the im­pres­sion of pan ex­ist­ing in space, rather than a band ar­riv­ing on earth from space. There were nu­mer­ous ef­fects de­signed to evoke the sen­sa­tion of be­ing in space. I lim­it­ed my­self to us­ing a sin­gle sam­ple at the end called a space odyssey, and I en­vi­sioned some­one hold­ing the pan, cre­at­ing the im­pres­sion of re­turn­ing to space in a UFO. The amus­ing part was that the play­ers had no idea that this was go­ing to hap­pen.

“I trust­ed them im­plic­it­ly, but giv­en their friend­ships with mem­bers of oth­er bands, I want­ed to safe­guard the el­e­ment of sur­prise. Ul­ti­mate­ly, it was a tru­ly mag­nif­i­cent ex­pe­ri­ence, and I can­not ad­e­quate­ly ex­press my grat­i­tude to every­one who con­tributed to this vic­to­ry for the band. I thank God every day for bless­ing me with these gifts and tal­ents, and I am eter­nal­ly grate­ful for those who con­tin­ue to be­lieve in me, es­pe­cial­ly my par­ents, my fam­i­ly, my friends, and my men­tors.”