Di­a­ton­ic Steel Or­ches­tra re­turned from a nine-day tour last month of five cities in In­di­ana. The tour was or­gan­ised as a means of as­sist­ing the In­di­ana Steel­band As­so­ci­a­tion in es­tab­lish­ing the steel­pan in an In­di­ana com­mu­ni­ty, where most of the cit­i­zens nev­er saw the steel­pan, least of all hear one.

Di­a­ton­ic Steel Or­ches­tra's ob­jec­tive, how­ev­er, be­ing a di­vi­sion of Di­a­ton­ic Pan In­sti­tute, was to cre­ate some lev­el of com­merce through the sales of steel­pans and to bring vis­i­tors to the shores of T&T.The tour proved to be a suc­cess be­yond what was en­vis­aged. The gov­er­nor of In­di­ana pro­claimed the week Pan Ap­pre­ci­a­tion Week in ho­n­our of Di­a­ton­ic vis­it, and the may­or of In­di­anapo­lis gave the May­oral Cer­tifi­cate of Ap­pre­ci­a­tion on the oc­ca­sion.

In ad­di­tion, cul­tur­al ties were es­tab­lished with the In­di­ana Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty, which will be pur­chas­ing pans to es­tab­lish a steel­band at the Uni­ver­si­ty and send­ing stu­dents to Trinidad an­nu­al­ly for tu­tor­ing in the art of play­ing the in­stru­ments.Di­a­ton­ic has is­sued thanks to the T&T En­ter­tain­ment Com­pa­ny for its tremen­dous sup­port in mak­ing this tour pos­si­ble. Al­so, Point Lisas Ni­tro­gen Ltd for its time­ly in­ter­ven­tion, and the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny.