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Sunday, July 13, 2025

Brother: Build pan school in honour of Philmore

by

Sascha Wilson
2475 days ago
20181003

The broth­er of the late Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore is call­ing for the es­tab­lish­ment of a steel­pan acad­e­my to be built in his broth­er's name.

Bri­an Philmore was speak­ing dur­ing a trib­ute at the Fon­claire Steel Or­ches­tra pa­n­yard in San Fer­nan­do on Tues­day which was at­tend­ed by hun­dreds of peo­ple from all walks of life, in­clud­ing for­mer pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona.

He said it was his broth­er's dream to con­struct a steel­pan school for youths.

And he res­ur­rect­ed one of his broth­er's most hurt­ful ex­pe­ri­ences af­ter Fon­claire lost the 1990 Panora­ma ti­tle by half of a point with its ren­di­tion of Pan by Storm.

"I want to send the mes­sage to the judges that you did my broth­er an in­jus­tice be­cause that was Fon­claire's year and in our heart, we knew that that was Fon­claire's year and I am sor­ry he left this plane of ex­is­tence as the on­ly arranger that did not win a Panora­ma."

He re­called his broth­er first picked up his pan sticks at age 15 and taught him­self to play by air.

"That Pan by Storm is the time when he should have made his mark in the in­dus­try and at qui­et times he would talk about it all the time. We have been bat­tling a north/south bat­tle from in­cep­tion for too long and that both­ered Ken. He used to cry and say maybe it is the way I look or maybe it is where I am from."

Philmore said his broth­er, who taught at Pleas­antville Se­nior Sec­ondary, al­so had a vi­sion, along with his moth­er, for a steel­pan school but he was hes­i­tant to pur­sue it be­cause of how some peo­ple and gov­ern­ments treat­ed the na­tion­al in­stru­ment. Philmore said a fit­ting trib­ute to his broth­er will be to es­tab­lish a steel­band school.

"The coun­try is dy­ing from lack of arrangers. Arrangers are leav­ing us and none are be­ing cre­at­ed," he said.

Fon­claire's arranger Dar­ren Shep­pard said on Sun­day night when he left the pa­n­yard where a trib­ute was held hours af­ter Prof Philmore's death, a melody be­gan haunt­ing him in his head.

"Half past three in the morn­ing I came up with a melody. Fon­claire al­lyuh have al­lyuh song for 2019. And the ti­tle of that song is Heart of Love and we go­ing to paint the sa­van­nah for Philmore on the fi­nal night. "

He said Prof Philmore set the bar for pro­fes­sion­al­ism in the art­form and for how en­ter­tain­ers and pan­nists should in­ter­act with fans be­cause he was an ap­proach­able and friend­ly per­son.

Philmore was re­mem­bered not on­ly in words but al­so with ex­tem­po, pan, drums, in song and with a spe­cial per­for­mance by moko jumbies as the pa­n­yard was trans­formed in­to a mi­ni Car­ni­val/Panora­ma lime. It was at­tend­ed by politi­cians, busi­ness­men, so­ca artistes, pan­nists, drum­mers, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, oth­er stake­hold­ers in the art­form and peo­ple of all sec­tions of so­ci­ety all came out to pay their last re­spects to the steel­pan icon.

A pub­lic view­ing will be held on Thurs­day be­tween 12 pm - 5 pm at Guides Fu­ner­al Home and Cre­ma­to­ri­um in San Fer­nan­do, while the fu­ner­al ser­vice will be held on Fri­day at 10 am, at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts (South Cam­pus) fol­lowed by a pri­vate cre­ma­tion.

Philmore, 59, died on Sun­day at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, a week af­ter he suf­fer­ing se­ri­ous in­juries in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent. He is sur­vived by his wife Sophia and four chil­dren.


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