SAN­DRA L BLOOD

On Au­gust 24, the Katzen­jam­mers Steel Or­ches­tra (KJ) cel­e­brat­ed a mile­stone in youth de­vel­op­ment, grad­u­at­ing 55 stu­dent pan play­ers from its fifth an­nu­al Pan Out Your Fullest Po­ten­tial camp.

The month-long pro­gramme, held from Ju­ly 21 to Au­gust 23 at the band’s Black Rock pa­n­yard, is part of KJ’s on­go­ing dri­ve to nur­ture the next gen­er­a­tion of steel­pan tal­ent.

Wear­ing bur­gundy KJ Kids-brand­ed po­los, chil­dren be­tween the ages of five and nine—af­fec­tion­ate­ly called “ba­bies”—and their old­er coun­ter­parts aged 10 to 17 per­formed what they had learned be­fore proud­ly re­ceiv­ing cer­tifi­cates of com­ple­tion. Camper Khayli Moore shared her ex­pe­ri­ence with the au­di­ence, high­light­ing the friend­ships and con­fi­dence she gained through the pro­gramme.

Camp in­struc­tor and KJ sec­re­tary Ali­cia Ram­sey-Phillip said this year’s camp ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions.

“It was in­spir­ing to watch the chil­dren’s tal­ent and con­fi­dence blos­som through mu­sic,” she told Guardian Me­dia. “Many ar­rived with lit­tle or no knowl­edge of play­ing the steel­pan, but by the end they had learned sev­er­al songs and de­vel­oped a gen­uine love for the in­stru­ment.”

She ex­plained that stu­dents were di­vid­ed by age and learn­ing pace. The younger group had its own prac­tice time, while the old­er par­tic­i­pants fol­lowed a more ad­vanced sched­ule. Over the weeks, their progress was “noth­ing short of re­mark­able.”

Camp leader and long-stand­ing mu­sic tu­tor Max­son Ram­sey, who al­so cap­tains the band, de­scribed the foun­da­tion laid for new pan play­ers.

The ba­bies be­gan with the C-scale, rolling tech­nique, and stick-hold­ing, play­ing sim­ple songs such as “ABC” and “Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb.”

Old­er stu­dents ad­vanced to pieces in­clud­ing Hal­lelu­jah, Bring Back the Good Old Days, and Co­coa Tea.

The evening’s pro­gramme was chaired by Ka­dion Moore. As­sis­tant tu­tors in­clud­ed Ameedah Phillip, Kalif­er Dedi­er, Seren­i­ty Den­nis, Ser­e­na Sover­all, Jadon Phillip, Je­re­mi­ah Adam and Tyler Bai­ley. Cer­tifi­cates were pre­sent­ed by Sis­ney Brassey-Lea­cock, trea­sur­er of Pan Trin­ba­go’s To­ba­go Re­gion, along­side Max­son Ram­sey. The camp it­self was spon­sored en­tire­ly by KJ.

Tra­di­tion meets dis­ci­pline

Found­ed in 1951 in Black Rock by Hugh “Cassie” Ram­sey, May­nard East­man and Je­re­mie Wilkins, Katzen­jam­mers Steel Or­ches­tra is To­ba­go’s old­est con­tin­u­ous­ly per­form­ing steel­band. The group up­holds a tra­di­tion sim­i­lar to fam­i­ly-run en­ter­pris­es—pri­ori­tis­ing rel­a­tives with­out ex­clud­ing non-fam­i­ly mem­bers—and is renowned for strict dis­ci­pline, self-suf­fi­cien­cy and a com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence.

Man­aged and di­rect­ed by Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore, with Kersh Ram­sey as arranger and mu­si­cal di­rec­tor and Max­son Ram­sey as cap­tain, KJ has earned five na­tion­al Panora­ma ti­tles, in­clud­ing a hat trick this year. The band has hint­ed at step­ping in­to the large-band cat­e­go­ry for the 2026 Panora­ma sea­son.

As part of its “reimag­in­ing, re­struc­tur­ing, re­shap­ing, re­pur­pos­ing, re­brand­ing and reignit­ing,” Katzen­jam­mers launched its youth em­pow­er­ment pro­gramme to en­sure a steady pipeline of skilled pan play­ers. By de­lib­er­ate­ly en­gag­ing chil­dren from an ear­ly age, the or­ches­tra is build­ing a well-trained base for the fu­ture while pre­serv­ing To­ba­go’s rich steel­pan her­itage.