Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Em­bau Mo­heni made an ap­peal "to claim own­er­ship" of the steel­pan. He said the steel­pan "was ours." Mo­heni said, "Do not be­lieve that there are not oth­ers who would unashamed­ly claim it." The Mu­sic School in the Pa­n­yard and Pan Camps pro­grammes were launched yes­ter­day at the Ex­o­dus Steel Pan Or­ches­tra in St Au­gus­tine.

Mo­heni was the fea­ture speak­er. The pro­grammes are ini­tia­tives of the Cul­ture Di­vi­sion of the min­istry and ac­cord­ing to a brochure, were cre­at­ed as a means of de­vel­op­ing a more holis­tic ap­proach to mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion in terms of the teach­ing and learn­ing of mu­sic, the de­vel­op­ment and en­hance­ment of per­for­mance skills and the knowl­edge of mu­sic lit­er­a­cy.

The Ex­o­dus, Casablan­ca, Po­ten­tial Sym­pho­ny, Joy­lan­ders, Ju­nior Sam­my Skif­fle Steel Or­ches­tra and the San­gre Grande Cordettes' pa­n­yards are to be used for the mu­sic schools start­ing June 25 un­til Oc­to­ber 13. Icons such as Roy Cape, Er­rol Ince and Pel­ham God­dard re­ceived con­tracts from Mo­heni to serve as men­tors to par­tic­i­pants.

The pan camps are ex­pect­ed to run from Ju­ly 9 to 27 and Au­gust 6 to 24 at se­lect­ed pa­n­yards. Mo­heni said he heard that Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica and the Unit­ed Sates were tak­ing cred­it for this coun­try's na­tion­al in­stru­ment. He said: "There are oth­ers who would claim it and while they are claim­ing it, we are giv­ing up own­er­ship. "We have to take our own­er­ship in our art form and not on­ly that, we have to let the world know that it is a ge­nius from Trinidad and To­ba­go that gave birth to the steel­pan."