SAN­DRA L BLOOD

The French Panora­ma, a grow­ing show­case of steel­pan ex­cel­lence, is or­gan­ised by the French Panora­ma As­so­ci­a­tion (FPA), es­tab­lished in 2025 un­der the di­rec­tion of Wan­da Atkins and co-di­rect­ed by Math­ys Me­u­nier. How­ev­er, the event it­self pre­dates the or­gan­i­sa­tion, with its first edi­tion held in 2022.

“Fol­low­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, it was an ob­vi­ous choice to find an event that would re­unite the French steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty,” Atkins said. “Panora­ma brings every­one to­geth­er, so af­ter the pan­dem­ic, we de­cid­ed to keep the event vir­tu­al to fa­cil­i­tate the par­tic­i­pa­tion of as many French steel­bands as pos­si­ble.”

Atkins em­pha­sised that the vir­tu­al for­mat has proven to be a valu­able com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool, al­low­ing glob­al au­di­ences to wit­ness the de­vel­op­ment of France’s steel­pan move­ment. The as­so­ci­a­tion’s mis­sion, she not­ed, is to high­light the steel­pan art­form and pro­mote French steel­bands “in ac­knowl­edg­ment to the Trin­bag­o­ni­ans for the gift of the steel­pan to the world.”

The fifth edi­tion of The French Panora­ma will take place to­mor­row at 8.30 pm (France) and 3.30 pm (T&T), streamed via the event’s YouTube chan­nel. Twelve bands will com­pete be­fore an in­ter­na­tion­al pan­el of ad­ju­di­ca­tors in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Akua Lei­th and Au­gus­tus Pe­ters, along with Japan’s Yuko Asa­da.

De­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Ca­lyp­so­ci­a­tion—Sun­day Band of Paris, cap­tained by Math­ieu Borgne, se­cured 349 points last year with an arrange­ment of One of a Kind by Machel Mon­tano. The arrange­ment was a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Emile Lalsingue, Borgne and Lau­rent Lalsingue. The band al­so holds the record for the most Panora­ma ti­tles. This year, they will per­form an arrange­ment of Ah Fraid Pussy Bite Me by The Mighty Spar­row, arranged by Emile Lalsin­gué and Borgne.

Among the oth­er com­peti­tors are Karukéra Steel­band per­form­ing Signs of the End of Times by Sug­ar Aloes, arranged by Ko­bie Al­leyne; Steel Vi­bra­tion with La Foi by Les Frères Dé­jean; Les Amis de San Fer­nan­do with Take Me Home by Free­town Col­lec­tive; and Pan’n’Joy Steel­band per­form­ing Ou­vrez les Fron­tières by Tiken Jah Fakoly.

Oth­er en­tries in­clude arrange­ments of Thank You by Di­do; En­gine Room by Olatun­ji; Miss Dorothy by Roar­ing Li­on; First Ex­pe­ri­ence by KMC; and Ne Me Quitte Pas by Jacques Brel, among oth­ers.

Bands are per­mit­ted to use ex­ist­ing arrange­ments or cre­ate new ones, and must com­prise be­tween ten and 45 play­ers. The win­ning en­sem­ble will re­ceive a spe­cial­ly de­signed tro­phy by Pierre Hour­d­e­quin, in­spired by the book La Tête Dans Le Pan by François Lacheze, pub­lished in 2001.

Atkins not­ed that par­tic­i­pat­ing bands rep­re­sent var­i­ous re­gions of France, each op­er­at­ing with­in its own as­so­ci­a­tion. Mu­si­cians of­ten per­form across mul­ti­ple en­sem­bles, some­times even across na­tion­al bor­ders. This year’s edi­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly no­table for the in­clu­sion of par­tic­i­pants from Mar­tinique, Guade­loupe and Réu­nion.

She added that the or­gan­is­ers are en­cour­aged by the event’s re­cep­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. While Pan Trin­ba­go is recog­nised as the world gov­ern­ing body for steel­pan, the FPA has opt­ed to op­er­ate in­de­pen­dent­ly, al­low­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion to de­vel­op its own iden­ti­ty while re­main­ing deeply root­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al in­flu­ence.