Steel­pan sololist ex­tra­or­di­naire Noel La Pierre de­part­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go en route to Shang­hai, Chi­na to rep­re­sent T&T steel pan cul­ture at the 13th Shang­hai per­form­ing Arts Fes­ti­val (SPAF) 2011.Re­cent­ly, La Pierre was fea­tured as part of the T&T con­tin­gent host­ed by the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism in Shang­hai Ex­po 2010, Chi­na, where he was in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate as an artiste at the 12th Shang­hai Arts Fes­ti­val.Af­ter thrilling the au­di­ences from all over the world with his tal­ent and tremen­dous per­for­mance, the com­mit­tee in­vit­ed La Pierre back at this year's arts fes­ti­val.

The 13th Shang­hai Per­form­ing Arts Fes­ti­val (SPAF) is an in­ter­na­tion­al per­form­ing fair which has be­come the largest and the most fruit­ful in­ter­na­tion­al per­for­mance fair so far ever held in Chi­na.With 12 years of suc­cess, the SPAF, com­mon­ly called "SPAF Dock Shang­hai," has be­come the "short­cut" for many do­mes­tic and for­eign per­form­ing in­sti­tu­tions, groups and artistes; who for the first time have en­tered the Chi­nese per­form­ing mar­ket and will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to net­work and build strate­gic re­la­tion­ships with per­son of sim­i­lar trade from Chi­na and oth­er coun­tries.

La Pierre has been fea­tured as a pre­mier pan soloist -"One Man Band"-for more than 33 years and an en­tre­pre­neur for over 16 years, pro­mot­ing and per­form­ing on the na­tion­al in­stru­ment of T&T in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. This ex­pe­ri­ence he states would not have be pos­si­ble with­out the sup­port of the SPAF Com­mit­tee in Chi­na and the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism.He al­so stat­ed his on­ly de­sire is to con­tin­ue to knock and open doors to en­sure that the na­tion­al in­stru­ment gains the re­spect it de­serves and to con­tin­ue pro­mot­ing his coun­try.The 13th SPAF, which will fea­ture over 50 stage per­for­mances from all over the world, var­i­ous art ex­hi­bi­tions and fo­rum, runs un­til Oc­to­ber 20.