DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The sounds of steel­pan echoed across T&T yes­ter­day, as the coun­try joined glob­al cel­e­bra­tions for the third ob­ser­vance of World Steel­pan Day, of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised by the Unit­ed Na­tions in 2023.

Wood­ford Square and the in­ner streets of the cap­i­tal city trans­formed in­to a stage for live steel­pan mu­sic, re­plac­ing the every­day hus­tle with the bright, rhyth­mic notes born from the oil drum.

For Pan Trin­ba­go, the oc­ca­sion marked an­oth­er mile­stone in its decades-long mis­sion to se­cure the in­stru­ment’s place on the world stage.

“When the Unit­ed Na­tions made the de­c­la­ra­tion, we couldn’t be proud­er,” said Pan Trin­ba­go sec­re­tary Denise Her­nan­dez.

“It told the world, this is ours. We’ve giv­en it to the world—run with it, like it, play it—but it be­longs here.”

How­ev­er, Her­nan­dez echoed sen­ti­ments ex­pressed by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les that pan should be taught in every school.

She not­ed that Pan Trin­ba­go launched a “pan in schools” ini­tia­tive in the ear­ly 2000s to dis­trib­ute 25-piece sets na­tion­wide un­der the lead­er­ship of then-CEO Patrick Arnold.

“That is one of the things we are hop­ing to have re­turned be­cause by right, this is the land of steel­pan. There­fore, every school from EC­CE, pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary, ter­tiary, should have a steel or­ches­tra,” she said.

“And every­body’s now say­ing that the eas­i­est way to learn mu­sic, the pan, be­cause of the way it’s struc­tured, is a very easy in­stru­ment to al­low you to learn mu­sic. So we’ll find that’s why it’s be­ing tak­en up all over the world, Japan, Ger­many, the Unit­ed States. It’s eas­i­er than a pi­ano or flute or vi­o­lin. So why shouldn’t we have it in all of our schools?”

She added that the in­stru­ment sup­port­ed an en­tire ecosys­tem of skills and in­dus­tries, from tun­ing and craft­ing to mer­chan­dise and graph­ic de­sign, with po­ten­tial to be­come the coun­try’s sec­ond-largest eco­nom­ic earn­er.

Her­nan­dez al­so called on cor­po­rate T&T to fol­low the lead of spon­sors like bpTT and NGC in sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ty steel­bands.

“Our steel­pan yards are now home­work cen­tres, places to keep the youths off the streets, teach­ing youths mu­sic. So, if I am a cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ty busi­ness, then I should be the one ap­proach­ing say­ing, how can I help you? That way, your lit­tle in­vest­ment will bring re­turns. Cor­po­rate T&T needs to re­alise this is not just for Pan Trin­ba­go, this is for T&T.”

Ka­maya McPhee, a 20-year-old pan­nist with the Epic Koskeros Steel Or­ches­tra, said she felt ho­n­oured to be part of some­thing her coun­try cre­at­ed, es­pe­cial­ly as the in­stru­ment gained glob­al recog­ni­tion.

She agreed that pan should be taught in schools, “to share the cul­ture, to pass on the knowl­edge too, to pass it on to gen­er­a­tions, you know, so that way it won’t die out.”

McPhee went a step fur­ther, urg­ing pro­mot­ers and event plan­ners to in­clude pan in more cor­po­rate and pri­vate events such as wed­dings and ba­by show­ers.

Vi­su­al­ly im­paired crafter Aaron Joseph, of the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, al­so ex­pressed pride in the in­stru­ment and agreed it should be taught in schools.

“It’s a beau­ti­ful in­stru­ment and I just love it, es­pe­cial­ly the small pan. It’s a beau­ti­ful tune that some­times mes­meris­es me.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing World Steel­pan Day, for­mer tourism min­is­ter Dr Ran­dall Mitchell praised the ex­cel­lence of the cre­ators, tuners, and per­form­ers, as well as the en­dur­ing lega­cy of the mu­si­cal in­stru­ment born in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

He, how­ev­er, urged the Gov­ern­ment to do more to pro­tect the in­stru­ment’s in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty.

“It’s time we aban­don the recorder for some­thing that is unique­ly ours. Gov­ern­ment al­so needs to con­tin­ue to place fo­cus on the mar­ket­ing of the steel­pan by de­vel­op­ing the Ge­o­graph­i­cal In­di­ca­tor in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty grant­ed re­cent­ly.

“This al­lows T&T the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ful­ly claim own­er­ship and brand­ing through the steel­pan and to give our man­u­fac­tur­ers and tuners an ad­van­tage on the glob­al stage.”

Mitchell al­so called for in­creased fund­ing for the steel­pan move­ment through Pan Trin­ba­go, with an em­pha­sis on en­cour­ag­ing youth par­tic­i­pa­tion in pa­n­yards.

“Gov­ern­ment sup­port, and an or­gan­ised and re­spect­ed move­ment al­so en­cour­ages and mo­bilis­es pri­vate sec­tor sup­port which is al­so cru­cial.”

He end­ed with a call for out­dat­ed na­tion­al em­blems to be up­dat­ed.

“This is a source of im­mense pride for cit­i­zens and the ships must go!” he said, re­fer­ring to the re­place­ment of the three ships of Christo­pher Colum­bus with the steel­pan on the na­tion­al coat of arms last year.