Sean Nero

Ro­man Catholic priest Fr Clyde Har­vey yes­ter­day ex­pressed hope that pan mu­sic would once again be a source of qual­i­ty en­ter­tain­ment at every event across T&T. Har­vey made the re­mark in a ser­mon at a ser­vice held at the St Joseph's Con­vent Chapel, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, to mark Pan Trin­ba­go's ob­ser­vance of Steel­band Month, cel­e­brat­ed in Au­gust this year.

Har­vey said dur­ing his trav­els, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Unit­ed King­dom, he saw sev­en-piece steel­bands trav­el­ling across the coun­try per­form­ing at dif­fer­ent venues, spread­ing the gospel of the T&T in­stru­ment. "This is one of the ways in which we can spread the pan here in T&T. Put pans for a band that size in a pick-up truck and go­ing around spread­ing the gospel of the pan," he said to a con­gre­ga­tion that in­clud­ed Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az and oth­er mem­bers of his ex­ec­u­tive.

Har­vey said what was spe­cial to him about Sun­day's ser­vice was that the sin­gle tenor pan placed at the foot of the al­tar was pro­vid­ed by St Joseph's Con­vent. He re­called a time when it was noth­ing short of crim­i­nal for a stu­dent of the school to be­friend a pan­man, much less play the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. But to­day, he said, he took com­fort that over time things had changed for the bet­ter.

At the ser­vice, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from sev­er­al steel­bands pre­sent­ed their flags to be blessed, while the Laven­tille-based Uni-Stars pro­vid­ed qual­i­ty en­ter­tain­ment. Sun­day's mass fol­lowed Fri­day's Steel­pan Awards Cer­e­mo­ny held at the Fes­ti­val Ball­room of the Crowne Plaza Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

To­day, which has been dubbed Pi­o­neers' Day, there will be an evening of re­flec­tion and in­tro­spec­tion at the Char­lotte Street pa­n­yard of BP Rene­gades, to be fol­lowed by a youth ral­ly on Sat­ur­day, at the Pad­dock at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.