Mark Loquan won't be hearing the music he co-composed with Ken "Professor" Philmore and Destra-at least he won't be hearing it live. At Panorama, there will be steelbands playing Calling Meh, but Loquan will be in Africa. "I will be missing Carnival this year, and I'll just have to watch on stream or try to find a radio station online that may be carrying Panorama," Loquan wrote in an e-mail. "Before I had an excuse to go back to Trinidad from Angola, where I work. My family was based back home in Trinidad while I travelled back and forth. Now I will be going back and forth between Angola and Cape Town, where my family is currently living."
Loquan works for Yara International ASA, a global firm specialising in agricultural products and environmental protection agents. He had been running the Trinidad operation for six years, from 2002 to 2008, and he has been co-composing pan tunes with Philmore since 2008 with songs like Hooked, sung by Destra in 2008; Time to Breakaway, performed by Kerwyn Trotman in 2008; D Trini Way, performed by Destra in 2009; Dangerous, sung by Anslem Douglas/Colin Lucas in 2009, and Surrender and Rewind, both sung by Destra in 2010.
But his work in pan really dates back to 1999 with Glory, composed by Loquan and Andy Sheafe, written by Loquan and sung by Sheldon Blackman. Some of his popular pan tunes include Passion for Pan, sung by Shanaqua, and Fire and Steel, sung by Denyse Plummer in 2001. He teamed up with Alvin Daniell in 2002 for a song called For the Love, sung by Denyse Plummer. If you want the whole list you can check his Web site, www.markloquan.pan-jumbie.com/. On YouTube you can see A Land for All, a 1996 composition, written and sung by Loquan and performed by Super Sonics Steel Ensemble for the title of Best Steel Ensemble at the 1998 Steelband Music Festival.
If you meet Loquan on the street, you wouldn't guess he's a Carnival person. Low-keyed, quiet, reserved and refined, his interest in music, pan and Carnival is as much technical and academic as it is practical. But then there are those who only know him from pan and never realised he had a job outside of Carnival and music. In 2004, Loquan founded the Music Literacy Trust (MLT) while he was an NGO at Yara Trinidad Ltd. The MLT is still going strong under a new and very active chairman, Jenny Lee. Loquan is still very much involved with MLT activities. Recently the trust handed over scores of Philmore and Bobby Mohammed pan arrangements to the universities to use in the music curriculums at UTT, UWI and Costaatt.
Loquan's work in the MLT ensured that pan music would be scored and available for musicians to read and perform. It is a virtual library of pan music in a culture where much of that music was once lost or discarded after Carnival, along with the oil drums it was played on. Yara and the MLT had been involved in pan music literacy since 2003, working with Jit Samaroo, Ray Holman, and Junior and Edwin Pouchet.
"We also transcribed a pan arrangement for pan and conventional orchestral instruments so that pan and symphonic orchestra could perform," says Loquan.
Then there was also the City Angels programme that was handed over to Jessel Murray of the NSSO and National Sinfonia. This programme started in southeast Port-of-Spain with eight schools, one secondary and seven primary schools that met for a three-week workshop in July 2010. There are plans to continue this programme in 2011 as well as working it into an after-school programme. Loquan has been working in Angola since 2009, and he'll probably be there until at least 2012. "I'm sorry to miss Carnival this year," he wrote in a recent e-mail.
It's not the first Carnival he has missed. At one time he was based in Scandinavia, and couldn't return for Carnival. Still, Loquan never forgets T&T or pan. He hopes to release Pan in Education 2 in mid 2011.
"This will include an animation on music literacy that I will donate to the Music Literacy Trust. Pan arrangements will be scored, choral arrangements of pan songs, and, as a bonus, pan arrangements will be transcribed for conventional orchestral instruments." Even though he has been busy travelling and working in Africa, Loquan says he has managed to follow the development of pan on the Web sites. Pan is never far from his thoughts.
"Pan has been a great outlet for creativity and expression. It has been so rewarding to meet so many talented players, pan legends, local and foreign bands..." His list goes on and on. He's glad to see Carnival is back in the Savannah, and he'll probably take in Carnival in Luanda, Angola. "Their Mardi Gras is very important to Angolan culture, especially after the war ended in 2002. I'll be there," says Loquan, "but I think my spirit will be back in Trinidad during the Carnival." I'm sure that's true for every Trini who can't be home for Carnival.