Sean Nero

Josanne Fran­cis, 21, prides her­self among the new wave of pan­nists who will not be con­fined to just play­ing the steel­pan, as a hob­by. A young steel­band arranger, Fran­cis has a grow­ing pas­sion for com­pos­ing, too. Added to that she's a vir­tu­oso on her trade­mark tenor pan and is present­ly study­ing for a Bach­e­lor of Arts De­gree in mu­sic at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Mis­sis­sip­pi. There, Fran­cis is a per­cus­sion­ist in train­ing and plays a wide range of in­stru­ments from or­ches­tral snare drum, marim­ba, bells, cym­bals and tim­pani as well as in­stru­ments of Brazil­ian ori­gin.

Yet, she de­clared that noth­ing com­pares to the mys­ti­cal ef­fects from the steel­pan when played. "When I play the steel­pan, I feel as though I have en­tered a new place in a new world. A world where there is no wor­ry or pain," said Fran­cis. She added: "I feel re­al­ly free and re­laxed. It's al­most as if I am not even think­ing about the mu­sic and where my hand is sup­posed to go. When I reach that stage, I don't think of the pan, the mu­sic, nor me. Every­thing just be­comes one, in an un­known Par­adise."

Be­hind the mu­sic:

Twelve years af­ter her par­ents saw an ar­ti­cle in the news­pa­pers ad­ver­tis­ing a be­gin­ner's course in steel­pan at the Mer­ry Tones pa­n­yard in Diego Mar­tin, there has been no turn­ing back for this tal­ent­ed young la­dy. Whether it's here at home or abroad at school she con­tin­ues to be an ex­em­plar and am­bas­sador for pi­o­neers and present day ex­po­nents on the pan. She has grasped the beau­ty of learn­ing and cher­ish­es the op­por­tu­ni­ty to im­part and il­lus­trate that knowl­edge of mu­sic.

"I have to be in a cer­tain mood to arrange or com­pose. Some­times I may be eat­ing or hang­ing out with friends and I would hear a melody in my head or a line that I may want to put in­to an arrange­ment. If I get home one hour lat­er and try to de­vel­op on it, it will not be as suc­cess­ful as if I had start­ed work­ing on it right away," re­lat­ed Fran­cis. "Cer­tain ex­treme events in­spire me to com­pose such as a great ac­com­plish­ment or even a tragedy. Oth­er times, I re­al­ly do not know where it comes from. When it comes to ar­rang­ing, my in­spi­ra­tion comes from an at­trac­tive melody or a good band."

A work in progress:

Like most cre­ators, she de­scribed the com­ple­tion of a mu­si­cal work as a "big re­lief." Two years ago, Fran­cis served as co-arranger for St Joseph's Con­vent Port-of-Spain for the 2007 Ju­nior Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. Su­perblue's (Austin Lyons) Flag Par­ty for was the tune-of-choice. A year lat­er, she in­tro­duced the arrange­ment to the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Mis­sis­sip­pi's Steel­band. "When I heard my mu­sic be­ing per­formed I felt very emo­tion­al.

I felt as though I was on cloud nine," Fran­cis re­called. In­spired by suc­cess­ful arrangers and mu­si­cians and teach­ers and friends, her cy­cle of mo­ti­va­tion comes from par­ents Win­ston and Bar­bara Fran­cis, as well as arrangers Ray Hol­man and Liam Teague. Blessed with the for­tune of hav­ing tal­ent­ed and won­der­ful peo­ple in her life hon­est opin­ions and ad­vice, Fran­cis' ap­pre­ci­a­tion for mu­sic goes be­yond lis­ten­ing. It's now "very spir­i­tu­al." " I learned this from my teacher Mrs Patrice Neaves and from Pe­ter Telfer and the Mawasi Ex­pe­ri­ence, with whom I have per­formed with on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions," she said.