Nass­er Khan­Pres­i­dent of The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T (NGC) Mark Lo­quan is an ex­treme­ly busy man. Not on­ly is he a chem­i­cal en­gi­neer, Lo­quan hap­pens to be one of the coun­try's lead­ing steel­pan com­posers. Next year marks 18th con­sec­u­tive years since he has been com­pos­ing for Panora­ma.

His lat­est re­leas­es for Panora­ma 2017 are Pan King­dom (com­posed by Lo­quan, writ­ten by Gre­go­ry "GB" Bal­lan­tyne, and sung by Anslem Dou­glas with pan by Mia Gor­mandy), and Rhythm Run Tings (co-com­posed with Seion Gomez, writ­ten by Gre­go­ry "GB" Bal­lan­tyne, sung by Ker­nal Roberts). Both songs were pro­duced by Ju­nior Ibo Joseph.

Lo­quan was mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of the first res­i­dent steel­band in Perth, West­ern Aus­tralia, Perth Pan­demix, which start­ed in ear­ly 2013. He has pro­duced/co-pro­duced works such as Pas­sion for Pan al­bum (2000), the pi­o­neer­ing prod­ucts of Pan In Ed­u­ca­tion (2004), and Pan in Ed­u­ca­tion 2 (2011).

He has pro­duced sev­er­al pop­u­lar songs for Panora­ma–Pas­sion for Pan, Fire and Steel, Iden­ti­ty, Fren­zy, Colours Again. He has al­so col­lab­o­rat­ed with Am­rit Sama­roo, Ed­win Pouchet, Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore, Andy Sheafe, and Seion Gomez to pro­duce songs like Cel­e­bra­tion Time, Hooked, Dan­ger­ous, Sur­ren­der, Call­ing Meh, Vibes, Dr Sama­roo, Out­ta De Box and Bass on Fire.

Lo­quan has al­so en­joyed long-term col­lab­o­ra­tions with Denyse Plum­mer and De­stra Gar­cia dur­ing his mu­si­cal jour­ney.

His mu­sic has won awards in sev­er­al cat­e­gories, in­clud­ing Cott Pan Song of the Year (Colours Again sung by De­stra) and In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Awards.

He is al­so hon­orary found­ing di­rec­tor of the Mu­sic Lit­er­a­cy Trust, a NGO es­tab­lished in 2004, which has as­sist­ed tal­ent­ed and young pan­nists in ed­u­ca­tion, pre­served the mu­sic of cul­tur­al pan icons, and in­tro­duced mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes for youth in Trinidad (City An­gels) and To­ba­go (Seren­i­ty An­gels).

Tell our read­ers a bit about your ear­ly years...for ex­am­ple, fam­i­ly, where you were born and grew up.

I grew up in Pe­tit Val­ley with my fa­ther play­ing man­dolin and pi­ano, whilst my broth­ers and one of my sis­ters played gui­tar. I start­ed com­pos­ing mu­sic as a teenag­er and al­ways grav­i­tat­ed to­wards mu­sic as a hob­by, be­ing the school gui­tarist at con­certs in sec­ondary school or hang­ing out with col­leagues at uni­ver­si­ty play­ing gui­tar to­geth­er. I learnt to play the tenor pan in the ear­ly 90s with Sil­ver Stars and found my­self com­pos­ing for Panora­ma in 1999 as a hob­by, set­ting small goals.

Where did you at­tain your ed­u­ca­tion (el­e­men­tary, sec­ondary and ter­tiary)?

El­e­men­tary school: St Mon­i­ca's; sec­ondary: St Mary's Col­lege; ter­tiary: the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine and Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Fuqua School of Busi­ness in North Car­oli­na.

Tell us about your in­spi­ra­tion to do the type of "work" you do.

At this point in time, it is the hope that I can make a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion at one of the most chal­leng­ing times in the his­to­ry of our en­er­gy sec­tor which has con­tributed decades of ex­pe­ri­ence to my own growth.

What ad­vice would you give to any­one con­tem­plat­ing vo­ca­tions such as yours?

Pre­pare to work very hard and nev­er stop learn­ing.

Which of your steel­pan work(s) do you rate as the most sat­is­fy­ing and mem­o­rable?

There are sev­er­al mem­o­rable mo­ments. Call­ing Meh, which was per­formed by all the Aus­tralian and New Zealand steel­bands as a mass piece for all the steel­bands at the sec­ond Aus­tralian Steel­pan Fes­ti­val in Bris­bane in 2015 was quite mem­o­rable. Colours Again was per­formed by many steel­bands across the globe in 2006, with De­stra and the Ly­di­an Singers per­form­ing the piece live at the Cott Awards that year.

Which is your favourite ca­lyp­so/so­ca song of all time?

So many to men­tion one, but I al­ways have had an affin­i­ty for works such as Mighty Sniper's Por­trait of Trinidad; Ras Shorty I's Watch Out my Chil­dren; Ca­lyp­so Ris­ing sung by David Rud­der.

And your favourite pieces of mu­sic or songs (non-ca­lyp­so)?

Again, too many but they range from Beethoven's Moon­light Sonata No 14; to the time­less clas­sics of Fly Me to the Moon sung by Frank Sina­tra; to Yes­ter­day by the Bea­t­les; to Si­mon and Gar­funkel's Bridge Over Trou­bled Wa­ter; to Michael Jack­son's Hu­man Na­ture; to Bill With­er's Ain't No Sun­shine.

If you could pick any singer and/or band to per­form just for you (non-West In­di­an), who would you choose?

Per­haps Bruno Mars for his lev­el of en­ter­tain­ment; or Adele for her melodies and voice; or Tom­my Em­manuel or John May­er for their gui­tar work. And if I could go back in time, per­haps the Bea­t­les as I played a lot of their mu­sic grow­ing up.

Of all your ac­co­lades, prizes and awards which do you rate as ex­treme­ly spe­cial?

I guess what is ex­treme­ly spe­cial is less the awards, but more the ex­pe­ri­ence of chal­leng­ing my­self as mu­si­cal di­rec­tor to help forge the first steel­band in West­ern Aus­tralia (Perth Pan­demix with Lar­ry Car­val­ho as leader) with a wide reper­toire of mu­sic. The band which start­ed off with most mem­bers who had nev­er played pan or an in­stru­ment be­fore, con­tin­ues to­day af­ter al­most four years.

Who was your hero or "idol" grow­ing up (fic­tion­al or re­al or both) and why? And who do you ad­mire most to­day?

Af­ter spend­ing time in South Africa, while work­ing in An­go­la, it was good to un­der­stand the con­fines of Nel­son Man­dela (where he spent so many years) by vis­it­ing Robben Is­land, and the path cho­sen to keep a peace­ful tran­si­tion on his re­lease, and the im­pact he had on the world. With re­spect to the pan world, I would have to say the late Dr Jit Sama­roo for his hu­mil­i­ty, his in­cred­i­ble work and bound­less tal­ent, and some­one I had the for­tune to get to know over time.

What goals and or am­bi­tions do you still have?

To see one day that Trinidad and To­ba­go's steel­bands pre­serve their arrange­ments by not hav­ing them lost but scored and used for ed­u­ca­tion in our lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions.

Any­one else in your fam­i­ly mu­si­cal­ly in­clined?

My son plays pi­ano, pan and par­tic­u­lar­ly gui­tar quite well and is now in­to pro­duc­ing his own mu­sic.

Up­com­ing events and con­tact in­fo?

The Vir­tu­al Steel­band 2 Project (www.vir­tu­al­steel­band.com) led by Mia Gor­mandy, Yuko Asa­da and Scott Mc­Connell will con­nect in­di­vid­ual pan­nists and steel­bands per­form­ing one of my com­po­si­tions, Pan King­dom. The song was arranged by Am­rit Sama­roo. All scores for the in­di­vid­ual parts can now be down­loaded with the piece to be pre­miered in Oc­to­ber 2017. The song has al­so been re­leased for Panora­ma 2017 and is be­ing per­formed by Bird­song.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion please see www.mark­lo­quan­mu­sic.com

Who has been the biggest in­flu­ence on your life (out­side of your im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly)?

My broth­er-in-law who act­ed as a men­tor along the way as a stu­dent in sec­ondary school and uni­ver­si­ty, and some of my teach­ers in sec­ondary school.

What is your recipe for suc­cess?

Hard work, stay­ing true to what I be­lieve in, and fo­cus­ing not on­ly on re­sults but equal­ly the jour­ney to get there with good re­la­tion­ships.

If you had to solve the ills that pre­vail in T&T what would you do?

We can see how mu­sic can play a key role in trans­form­ing com­mu­ni­ties and in­di­vid­u­als. Seren­i­ty An­gels, Bird­song Acad­e­my, Gold­en Hands, Pan Mi­nors, Di­a­ton­ic Pan In­sti­tute, the Rev­e­la­tion In­sti­tute for Per­form­ing Ed­u­ca­tion (Ripe), Holis­tic Mu­sic School, var­i­ous mu­sic pro­grammes in steel­bands and all like sys­tems demon­strate vis­i­ble trans­for­ma­tion of a frac­tion of the so­ci­ety cur­rent­ly plagued by crime. We wit­ness the spread of El Sis­tema from Venezuela to the USA, Cana­da, UK, Eu­rope as well, which al­so has im­por­tant lessons. Per­haps if such pro­grammes had greater sup­port and vis­i­bil­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go, there may be a tip­ping point to con­vert some of the hope­less­ness and crime for some to pur­pose, mo­ti­va­tion, be­ing part of a team, and build­ing ca­reers and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

What ad­vice would you give to the young peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go?

The young peo­ple have im­mense tal­ent and learn quick­ly, and rep­re­sent our fu­ture. I would say to plan for the fu­ture and not on­ly to­day, and ask how can you make a dif­fer­ence in your own way by mak­ing a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion with your time, in­tel­lect and en­er­gy. When it seems tough, one nev­er knows what lies around the bend. Stay fo­cused on the path that you have set for your­self. If you fail, learn from it.

Most ful­fill­ing part of what you do?

To see mu­sic from noth­ing come to life not on­ly in sound, but al­so in the spir­it of the play­ers per­form­ing the mu­sic.

What are some of the chal­lenges/is­sues faced in the steel­pan are­na?

Some of the chal­lenges faced in the steel­pan sec­tor go be­yond the steel­pan and speak to the is­sues of how we ac­tu­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate our cul­ture, when there is a lack of preser­va­tion of our his­to­ry and cul­ture, de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of our her­itage build­ings, is­sues of how we are ed­u­cat­ed as peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to ap­pre­ci­ate our arts and cul­ture, what we hear on the ra­dio (cer­tain­ly quite lim­it­ed pro­grammes for our na­tion­al in­stru­ment), why our cul­tur­al icons some­times feel dis­il­lu­sioned in their own land but val­ued abroad, how we high­light our youth in­volved.

What would you like your lega­cy to be af­ter your pan and gas days are over?

I can on­ly hope the mu­sic is played and en­joyed lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for years to come, and schools are util­is­ing the scores in their cur­ricu­lum. Would be good to see the mu­sic al­so be­ing per­formed more and more on con­ven­tion­al or­ches­tra (start­ed with the Na­tion­al Sin­fo­nia per­form­ing panora­ma arrange­ments back in 2007).

De­scribe your­self in words be­gin­ning with M, the oth­er with L, your ini­tials.

Mak­ing "Mu­sic" and al­ways "Learn­ing".