SAN­DRA L BLOOD

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Af­ter months of de­lays due to COVID-19 re­stric­tions, To­bag­on­ian Keishaun Julien fi­nal­ly re­ceived his op­por­tu­ni­ty to per­form for the an­nu­al Sons of Steel con­cert. Julien, who stormed to vic­to­ry at the 2021 edi­tion of PanoGra­ma with Pro­fes­sor’s Pan by Storm, touched down in Cana­da last month, Ju­ly.

He left no notes un­touched in dis­play­ing his mu­si­cal prowess at Sons of Steel: One Evo­lu­tion, as the head­lin­er.

“It felt great to fi­nal­ly per­form in Cana­da”, Julien said. “I had no doubts about the trip. I knew from the start that COVID-19 re­stric­tions may have im­pact­ed the time­line and it was just a mat­ter of time be­fore it was pos­si­ble. I am grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to build my net­work fur­ther, con­nect with Cana­di­an fans, and en­joy the sights of Cana­da as well as the Carib­ana cel­e­bra­tions.”

Julien closed the show with a med­ley of tunes, start­ing with Ho­tel Cal­i­for­nia by the Ea­gles and end­ed with Mash Up by Blaxx. He per­formed af­ter the likes of T&T’s Earl Brooks, Cana­di­an Trenyce Sweeney and oth­er no­table steel­pan­nists. For­mer T&T Con­sul Gen­er­al Michael Lash­ley and Pres­i­dent of the On­tario Steel­pan As­so­ci­a­tion, Ter­rence Wil­son, were in at­ten­dance, along with Julien’s friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers, who flew from the US to watch him per­form. Cana­di­an pan en­thu­si­asts were al­so out in their num­bers.

Keishaun Julien getting set for one of his performances in Canada at the Sons of Steel Concert.

The or­gan­is­er, Earl La Pierre Jr, was very pleased to fi­nal­ly host Julien as part of his spon­sor­ship agree­ment.

“Keishaun showed Toron­to why he is a PanoGra­ma cham­pi­on. He wowed the au­di­ence with his skills and if they could have had their way, he would have come back for an en­core! Al­so, there are so many tal­ent­ed pan­nists around the world, and I am thank­ful for PanoGra­ma, through which we were able to meet and see some of the undis­cov­ered mu­si­cal tal­ents. I look for­ward to work­ing with Nevin and his team again in the fu­ture.”

The Sons of Steel con­cert was first host­ed in Cana­da in 2012, and was cre­at­ed around the sons of leg­endary pan­nist Earl la Pierre Snr, Olu­ji­mi and Noel La Pierre, and Earl La Pierre Jr. It al­so made it to the shores of Trinidad and To­ba­go over the years, and has fea­tured no­table pan­nists such as Du­vone Stew­art and the late Ken ‘Pro­fes­sor’ Philmore.

CEO and founder of PanoGra­ma, Nevin Roach, was ex­treme­ly sat­is­fied with La Pierre Jr’s host­ing. “Earl is top tier,” ex­pressed Roach.

“He did an amaz­ing job host­ing Keishaun and ex­e­cut­ing a qual­i­ty show. Lat­er this year, the 2022 PanoGra­ma win­ner will trav­el to the Ba­hamas to work with kids and per­form, and I hope to pro­vide more of these op­por­tu­ni­ties to up­com­ing steel­pan­nists in the fu­ture.”

With Cana­da in the books, Julien shifts his fo­cus to the up­com­ing To­ba­go Car­ni­val in Oc­to­ber.