An­drew Mar­tin

One of the more unique events of the up­com­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence and Panora­ma is a con­cert on Au­gust 7 by Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble.

The con­cert will be held at the Re­gency Ball­room at the Hy­att Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain start­ing at 8 pm and fea­ture the Amer­i­can-based Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble. The steel­band fea­tures a num­ber of lead­ing pan­nists from the USA, Japan, and Ja­maica, led by Trinidad's own Mia Gor­mandy.

The glob­al­i­sa­tion of pan is a ma­jor im­pe­tus for the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence and Panora­ma and the con­cert by the Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble fits the bill, tak­ing pan glob­al and to vir­tu­al re­al­i­ties nev­er be­fore seen or heard. The con­cert will fea­ture orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions for steel­band by mem­bers of the band as well as ca­lyp­so, pan clas­sics, and a very hot con­tem­po­rary work by the renowned Amer­i­can com­pos­er Andy Akiyo, whose new con­cer­to for steel­pan and or­ches­tra pre­miered in May, by Liam Teague and the Na­tion­al Sym­pho­ny, to rous­ing suc­cess.

The high­light of the evening will sure­ly be the Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble's pre­miere of their "vir­tu­al steel­band."

Band­leader Mia Gor­mandy con­ceived of the idea af­ter hear­ing and watch­ing the work on­line of com­pos­er Er­ic Whitacre's Vir­tu­al Choir which was start­ed in 2009 and quick­ly be­came a vi­ral in­ter­net sen­sa­tion. The con­cept of the vir­tu­al steel­band is sim­ple; you have a piece of mu­sic that is no­tat­ed with spe­cial de­tail giv­en to rhythm and dy­nam­ics.

Par­tic­i­pants from all over the world are in­vit­ed to add their voice by record­ing them­selves per­form­ing the com­po­si­tion and then up­load­ing the video track on­line. A team of en­gi­neers then works to com­bine the in­di­vid­ual per­for­mances to cre­ate a seam­less col­lage out of the many dis­parate parts, a com­plet­ed com­po­si­tion. The Vir­tu­al Choir has evolved in­to a glob­al sen­sa­tion and for a per­for­mance at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Glas­gow in 2014 the en­sem­ble fea­tured 2,292 singers from 80 dif­fer­ent coun­tries.

Gor­mandy recog­nised that the con­cept of a "vir­tu­al" band was per­fect for steel­band and she took the idea to the Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble in ear­ly 2014. The band re­spond­ed with en­thu­si­asm and has since been work­ing hard to put the vir­tu­al steel­band con­cept in­to re­al­i­ty.

Since a vir­tu­al steel­band is un­like any oth­er steel­band, the Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble de­cid­ed to com­mis­sion Liam Teague to cre­ate Belle, a new com­po­si­tion es­pe­cial­ly for the band. Par­tic­i­pants in the Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble's vir­tu­al steel­band now come from An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Ar­genti­na, Aus­tralia, Bar­ba­dos, Fin­land, France, Ja­maica, Japan, Nether­lands, Spain, Swe­den, Switzer­land, T&T, and the Unit­ed States.

The Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble was formed in 2009 as a small sta­ge­side steel­band by grad­u­ate stu­dents at North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty.

The prin­ci­ple mem­bers of the band are cur­rent and for­mer North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty Steel­band mem­bers seek­ing an­oth­er out­let to per­form, ra­ma­jay, and to ex­plore a vast range of chal­leng­ing arrange­ments and orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions for con­tem­po­rary steel­band.

From the band's in­cep­tion, the Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble has per­formed reg­u­lar­ly through­out the Mid­west and the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States in­clud­ing the Illi­nois Day of Per­cus­sion, the Gen­er­a­tions of Steel con­cert and sev­er­al school ap­pear­ances in con­nec­tion with the Chica­go Youth Sym­pho­ny's Mu­sic Path­ways pro­gramme.

As a re­sult of their in­spir­ing work, the Chica­go Youth Sym­pho­ny has since cre­at­ed its own steel­band. The up­com­ing con­cert on Au­gust 7 will be the Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble's first in­ter­na­tion­al per­for­mance.

The size of the Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble fluc­tu­ates from per­for­mance to per­for­mance. The band does, how­ev­er, have a core group of prin­ci­pal play­ers that shape the iden­ti­ty of the band. Prin­ci­pal mem­bers in­clude founder and di­rec­tor Mia Gor­mandy, who is no stranger to the pan world as she start­ed play­ing at age five and won her first com­pe­ti­tion at age six. She has since per­formed in Aus­tralia, Aus­tria, Eng­land, Cana­da, through­out the US, and sev­er­al coun­tries in the Caribbean. Yuko Asa­da is a steel­pan ed­u­ca­tor, per­former, builder, tuner, arranger, and tran­scriber. She is al­so one of the lead­ing tran­scribers for pan com­po­si­tions, es­pe­cial com­plex panora­ma arrange­ments. Ja­maican David Aarons per­formed with steel­bands in Ja­maica be­fore mov­ing to Trinidad to learn pan tun­ing, even­tu­al­ly earn­ing his BA in mu­sic from UWI–St Au­gus­tine, and al­so got his mas­ters in steel­pan per­for­mance from NIU.

Yu­ki Nakano is a Japan­ese pan­nist who has been com­ing to Trinidad to play with bands at Panora­ma for near­ly a decade. She has al­so per­formed sold out con­certs through­out Tokyo and Yoko­hama as a pan­nist. Scott Mc­Connell is an ac­tive per­cus­sion/steel­pan per­former and ed­u­ca­tor. In ad­di­tion to his pan stud­ies, Mc­Connel earned a sec­ond mas­ter's de­gree in Record­ing Arts at NIU and works now as a au­dio and video en­gi­neer. Abe Breil­ing is a Chica­go-based per­former and ed­u­ca­tor. Along with his work with the Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble, Breil­ing owns the busi­ness Mu­si­cal Steel where he cre­ates com­po­si­tions and arrange­ments for steel­band and builds steel­pan stands and ac­ces­sories.

For pan fa­nat­ics and any­one who wants to hear pan mov­ing be­yond our so­lar sys­tem, this is a great chance to hear fab­u­lous mu­sic at the high­est lev­el. As a word of cau­tion, so far there are no ro­bots as part of the band and on­ly "re­al" or "vir­tu­al" hu­man pan play­ers will be per­form­ing, though some will not be ac­tu­al­ly present.

Sched­ule

Intl Con­fer­ence and Panora­ma

Au­gust 1 – Cal In­vaders 75th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions

This event will be held in com­mem­o­ra­tion of CAL In­vaders' 75th an­niver­sary.

Time: All Day

Au­gust 4–In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Pan Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny

Au­gust 5–ICP Steel­pan Vil­lage–Grand Open­ing

Queens Park Sa­van­nah, PoS

Au­gust 5–In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Pan–Day 2

Hy­att Re­gency

Au­gust 6–In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Pan–Day 3

Hy­att Re­gency

Au­gust 7–In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Pan–Day 4

Au­gust 8–Pas­tiche Steel Con­cert

Hy­att Re­gency at 8 pm

Sin­gle Pan Day

Queens Park Sa­van­nah,

Port-of-Spain at 3 pm

Au­gust 9

In­ter­na­tion­al Panora­ma Com­pe­ti­tion

Queens Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain at 3 pm

�2 Ray Funk is a re­tired Alaskan judge who is pas­sion­ate­ly de­vot­ed to ca­lyp­so, pan and mas. Dr An­drew Mar­tin is an eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gist, per­cus­sion­ist, pan­nist, and Pro­fes­sor of Mu­sic at In­ver Hills Col­lege in St Paul, Min­neso­ta.