Michelle Loubon

Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra cap­tain Ed­win Pouchet says he dis­agrees with Hum­ming Bird (Gold) re­cip­i­ent and pan arranger Len Boogsie Sharpe's com­ment that "pan is dy­ing."

Min­utes af­ter he col­lect­ed the award for his con­tri­bu­tion to cul­ture on In­de­pen­dence night at Pres­i­dent's House, Sharpe, dubbed the Mozart of Pan said, "Right now, steel­pan down on the ground, no­body re­spects us." Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Patrick Arnold was al­so told by Sharpe: "You and your crew should step down and take a rest. We need peo­ple with busi­ness qual­i­fi­ca­tion to run the or­gan­i­sa­tion like any oth­er busi­ness." Sharpe al­so sug­gest­ed that busi­ness­men run the af­fairs of steel­pan. Yes­ter­day, Pouchet, who led Sil­ver Stars to vic­to­ry in the 2009 Panora­ma cham­pi­onships, said, "I dis­agree that steel­band dy­ing. Pan is here to stay. Maybe in a dif­fer­ent for­mat, but pan is here to stay." He said he un­der­stood what Sharpe was try­ing to ar­tic­u­late but found it need­ed clar­i­ty, He added: "I agree with the part about busi­ness­men should be run­ning Pan Trin­ba­go. He is right but he is say­ing it wrong. He should say "Pan Trin­ba­go should be run like a busi­ness."

Pouchet said pan­men and pan afi­ciona­dos were ful­ly qual­i­fied to run Pan Trin­ba­go's af­fairs. "It is not pan­men who are judg­ing the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions...Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are run­ning their busi­ness, so why can't pan­men do like­wise?" he said. "I have busi­ness­men play­ing in Sil­ver Stars. I have peo­ple like doc­tors and lawyers. When he says busi­ness­men, is he ex­clud­ing pan­men? Pan­men are not dum­mies. There are peo­ple from all walks of life play­ing pan to­day." Pouchet agreed that Pan Trin­ba­go need­ed to be shak­en up. "Re­cent­ly, I spoke to Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Patrick Arnold and he said he wants to run the or­gan­i­sa­tion in a more pro­fes­sion­al man­ner. I told him ap­pli­ca­tions should be sourced from pan peo­ple," he said. "The of­fices should be made to peo­ple who are pan play­ers. There are play­ers who have the re­quire­ments for the job. "I agree with Boogsie things should change. Pan is not dead. It is far from dead."

Sec­re­tary of Pan Trin­ba­go Richard Forteau said he, too, dis­agreed with Sharpe's state­ment. Re­view­ing the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade, he said there was a pletho­ra of pans on the pa­rade. Forteau said: "We had a mil­i­tary pa­rade. Al­most every­one had the steel­band as part of their mu­si­cal en­sem­ble. We have Pan In The Com­mu­ni­ties Project tak­ing steel­bands like Des­pers, Tokyo and Rene­gades to rur­al ar­eas like Ce­dros." Forteau spoke about the de­vel­op­ment of the G Pan–de­vel­oped by UWI lec­tur­er Dr Bri­an Copeland and his team. "The same man was giv­en a gift of the G Pan last time." Copeland re­ceived the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go for his in­no­va­tion.

Forteau took a jab at Sharpe. He said: "He is sup­posed to be work­ing at UTT. Ask him how many times he has gone to work? The peo­ple who are com­plain­ing about pan be­ing dead should go to work. If one is draw­ing a salary, one should be go­ing to en­sure it lives," Forteau al­so said Pan Trin­ba­go was re­spon­si­ble for ad­vo­ca­cy. Di­rec­tor of An­gos­tu­ra Wood­brook Play­boyz Bri­an Kuei Tung said, "I don't be­lieve pan is dy­ing in the least."