SAN­DRA L BLOOD

T he stage is set for one of the most dy­nam­ic Toron­to Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions yet on Au­gust 1, fol­low­ing of­fi­cial con­fir­ma­tion that the On­tario Steel­band As­so­ci­a­tion (OSA) has, for the first time, part­nered with Pan Trin­ba­go Inc. The an­nu­al com­pe­ti­tion, which be­gan in 2003, will mark a his­toric chap­ter in Cana­da’s steel­pan land­scape.

De­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Pan Fan­ta­sy are al­so prepar­ing for what they de­scribe as an awe-in­spir­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, as they aim for their 13th win.

Founder, di­rec­tor and cap­tain Wendy Jones, along with mu­si­cal arranger Al “Al­los” Fos­ter, shared their ex­cite­ment about the com­pe­ti­tion.

“It will be his­tor­i­cal. We’d be the first band to win un­der the new part­ner­ship—and it would be an­oth­er hat trick.”

The band al­ready boasts one “beaver trick” and a six-year win­ning streak.

In a re­lease dat­ed June 11, OSA PRO An­drew Rick­etts con­firmed that this year’s Toron­to Panora­ma, themed Keepin’ Pan Alive, will make his­to­ry through its of­fi­cial part­ner­ship with Pan Trin­ba­go.

“The event re­turns to Lam­port Sta­di­um with un­prece­dent­ed en­er­gy, el­e­gance, and in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion, where the rhythm of sum­mer will reach its crescen­do,” the re­lease stat­ed.

“OSA is proud to an­nounce a his­toric first—the of­fi­cial par­tic­i­pa­tion of Pan Trin­ba­go, the world gov­ern­ing body for steel­pan, in Toron­to’s icon­ic cel­e­bra­tion of Caribbean cul­ture and mu­sic.

“With our roots deeply em­bed­ded in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the birth­place of the steel­pan, this year’s Panora­ma promis­es to be a ground­break­ing show­case of artistry, uni­ty, and cul­tur­al ex­cel­lence. The part­ner­ship marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the glob­al jour­ney of the steel­pan move­ment.”

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore was pleased about the col­lab­o­ra­tion, say­ing: “It’s with im­mense pride that Pan Trin­ba­go, the world gov­ern­ing body for steel­pan, marks its first of­fi­cial par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2025 Toron­to Panora­ma—a his­toric mo­ment not on­ly for our or­gan­i­sa­tion, but for the glob­al steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty.”

She added that Pan Trin­ba­go is ho­n­oured to lend its ex­per­tise to OSA in sup­port of ex­cel­lence, in­tegri­ty, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty with­in steel­pan cul­ture.

“This part­ner­ship stands as a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to our shared vi­sion for steel­pan’s glob­al growth,” Ram­sey-Moore said.

“From T&T to Toron­to, we echo the lega­cy, the bril­liance, and the uni­ty of the steel­pan move­ment across gen­er­a­tions and na­tions. One in­stru­ment, one mis­sion, one world­wide fam­i­ly of steel­pan.”

The re­lease al­so not­ed that this year’s Panora­ma will fea­ture ex­hil­a­rat­ing per­for­mances from some of Cana­da’s top steel­bands, pre­sent­ed in an up­scale new for­mat de­signed to el­e­vate both au­di­ence and per­former ex­pe­ri­ences.

On en­gag­ing youth, the OSA em­pha­sised, “The as­so­ci­a­tion recog­nis­es the im­por­tance of nur­tur­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of pan­nists, tuners, arrangers, and cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors. Thou­sands of pa­trons, artistes, stu­dents, and cul­tur­al stake­hold­ers from across the Greater Toron­to Area, the Caribbean di­as­po­ra, and be­yond are ex­pect­ed. Apart from be­ing Cana­da’s pre­mier show­case of steel­pan mu­sic, the com­pe­ti­tion is a bea­con of cul­tur­al pride and in­no­va­tion on the glob­al stage.”

Since tak­ing of­fice in No­vem­ber 2018, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore has re-en­vi­sioned and trans­formed the or­gan­i­sa­tion, re­sult­ing in im­prove­ments across bands, the cal­i­bre of mu­sic, events, and prizes, as well as in­creased part­ner­ships, earn­ing her over eight in­ter­na­tion­al awards last year. OSA pres­i­dent Ter­rence “Ju­nior” Wil­son un­der­scored that Panora­ma is more than a com­pe­ti­tion—it’s a move­ment. He de­scribed the of­fi­cial part­ner­ship with Pan Trin­ba­go as a trans­for­ma­tive mo­ment for both Panora­ma and the steel­pan art form in Cana­da.

“It’s a reimag­ined look, el­e­vat­ed pro­duc­tion val­ue, and a strong em­pha­sis on youth en­gage­ment and cul­tur­al lega­cy,” Wil­son said.

“We are set­ting a bold new stan­dard, one that will es­tab­lish Toron­to Panora­ma as the crown jew­el of the Car­ni­val sea­son.”

Pan Trin­ba­go has al­so part­nered with OSA for Pan In D’ Park: We Still Lim­in’, a free-ad­mis­sion event set for Au­gust 3 at Nel­son Park.

Pan Alive com­pe­ti­tion gates open at 5.30 pm on Au­gust 1, with show­time at 7 pm. As­sist­ing Wil­son for this 22nd edi­tion of the event are Malai­ka K. Gon­za­lez and Ed­win John. Sev­en bands are slat­ed to com­pete in the fi­nals.