Upon returning from a visit to Trinidad in 1957, American folk musician and political icon Pete Seeger announced that pan "was destined to spread to the farthest reaches of the globe." And indeed, the past half century has seen the sounds and spirit of pan infiltrate six continents and countless countries.
In some places (Europe and North America) the inroads have been brisk, and others not so much. In the latter category falls Asia–a relatively recent conquest for the music of pan. Taiwan may not be located in the Caribbean, but this part of Asia has been moving and grooving to pan for nearly 25 years. All thanks to one important Trinidad-America-Taiwan pan connection.
It was with great excitement and curiosity that the people of Taiwan welcomed pan legend Cliff Alexis in fall of 1988 as he arrived to build pans for Taipei National University of the Arts. Alexis and his colleague Al O'Connor from Northern Illinois University had been invited by the Taipei National University of the Arts to build pans and establish a steelband in an effort to expand the music department's existing percussion program.
This was the first steelband of its kind in Taiwan and at nearly every concert the band played for people hearing pan for the first time. The modest size of band notwithstanding (there were only six sets of pans plus drumset), the band was a huge success. With their work complete, O'Connor and Alexis made arrangements to return to the US. Taipei National University of the Arts, however, was hooked on pan and set about finding a permanent replacement for the departing panmen in order to lead the group and keep the pan music alive.
Alexis and O'Connor turned to one of their top pan students for the job. Like Dr Jeannine Remy before her and Liam Teague after, Sarah Barnes-Tsai was a prot�g� student of Alexis and O'Connor at Northern Illinois University and had earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees in percussion and pan at the famous pan institution. Barnes-Tsai arrived in Taiwan in 1989 on what she thought was a 6 month contract to teach pan. Now some 24 years later, she is still going strong and the pan program at Taipei National University of the Arts is thriving.
What began as a small steel band of just six players has evolved into two bands of 26 players. In 1992, Cliff Alexis returned to Taiwan to build more pans for the program which now has 12 sets of pans. Each of the steelbands at Taipei National University of the Arts meets twice per week for two hours. The ensembles are reserved for music major students and non-music major students pursuing degrees in art, theatre, and dance. In keeping with the spirit of pan in Trinidad, Barnes-Tsai teaches these ensembles by rote without music notation–though she does on occasion create her own made-up charts with letter names and numbers. At the end of each semester, the Taipei National University of the Arts steelband gives a concert which is well attended.
Since its inception, nearly 1,000 students have taken steelband classes at the university and thousands more have attended the concerts. What's more, these Taiwanese steelband students are enthusiastic about the music of Trinidad and their performances feature many of the classic and current calypso/soca tunes familiar to the Caribbean including those by Lord Kitchener, David Rudder, and the like.
The Northern Illinois University steelband under the direction of Cliff Alexis and Al O'Connor visited the country in 1992 for ten day cross-country tour of the island. The tour was sponsored by the Coordination Council of North American Affairs wing of the Taiwanese government. The concert was a huge success and included a marquee performance at the CKS National Concert Hall in Taipei for an audience in excess of 30,000 people. The Taiwanese love of pan had been set, they were bitten by the pan jumbie. The impact of the tour was great and the Northern Illinois University steelband was asked back to Taiwan in 1998 for another tour.
Also in 1998, West Coast percussionist extraordinaire Chris Wabich toured the country with a four-piece pan side and has since return with other percussion groups and performed, taught and tuned in a variety of settings. Taipei National University of the Arts is not the only place for pan in Taiwan.
Since the early 2000s, touring steelbands from Trinidad, like Renegades, have performed in Taipei and throughout the island at summer festivals and resorts. In 2008, Matt Britain, director of the Vanderbilt University Steelband went over to conduct a pan workshop at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Last year, the Belizian steelband Pantempers performed for two weeks in Taiwan.
Like T&T, Taiwan was once a British Colony. Yet, since it's reunification with China in 1997 the country has continued the tradition of diverse cultural infusion–pan being but one small part. Pan is going strong in Taiwan, thanks in no small part to Professor Sarah Barnes-Tsai and the students of Taipei National University of the Arts.
It is because of the love and dedication of these pan men and women that the future of pan in Asia is only at its beginnings.
