Nass­er Khan

A PhD can­di­date in eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy at Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty and the cur­rent play­er/man­ag­er of Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble, Mia Gor­mandy is an ac­com­plished pan play­er with an ex­ten­sive CV to prove it.

Gor­mandy, who will soon turn 27, be­gan play­ing the steel­pan at age five and won her first com­pe­ti­tion at age six. She was ex­posed to a num­ber of com­pe­ti­tions and shows where mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence was the hall­mark. She has won many com­pe­ti­tions in T&T and in the Caribbean, such as Twelve and Un­der, Pan in Schools, Pan Trin­ba­go Ju­nior Com­pe­ti­tion, Caribbean Ju­nior Pan Fes­ti­val (An­tigua), just to name a few.

She has per­formed in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent coun­tries all over the world in­clud­ing Aus­tralia, Aus­tria, Eng­land, USA, Cana­da, and the Caribbean.

At age 15, Gor­mandy at­tained a full schol­ar­ship to at­tend North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty (NIU) where she grad­u­at­ed in 2009 with her Bach­e­lor's De­gree in Mu­sic (Ho­n­ours). She stud­ied un­der steel­pan pi­o­neer Cliff Alex­is and steel­pan vir­tu­oso Liam Teague. In 2008, she be­came the first pan play­er to win the NIU Con­cer­to Com­pe­ti­tion.

Gor­mandy guest-starred at sev­er­al Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ty steel­bands such as Uni­ver­si­ty of Akron Steel Drum Band, North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty Steel­band (be­fore she be­came a stu­dent there), and Hum­boldt State Uni­ver­si­ty Ca­lyp­so Band. Sev­er­al dif­fer­ent com­mit­tees award­ed her over the years, in­clud­ing the Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val Foun­da­tion and the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion. She was al­so award­ed NIU's Most Out­stand­ing Woman of the Year 2011.

Gor­mandy grad­u­at­ed in May of that year with her Mas­ter's of Mu­sic de­gree in steel­pan per­for­mance. She has per­formed with many world-renowned artistes such as gui­tarist Berta Ro­jas and 11-time Gram­my-award win­ner Paquito D'Rivera. She re­cent­ly grad­u­at­ed with a sec­ond Mas­ter's of Mu­sic de­gree in eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy and is now pur­su­ing her PhD where her dis­ser­ta­tion is en­ti­tled Pan in Japan.

She is the re­cip­i­ent of the Howard May­er Brown Fel­low­ship award­ed by the Amer­i­can Mu­si­co­log­i­cal So­ci­ety. She and her fel­low pan play­ers formed the band Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble in 2009. Pas­tiche is an artis­tic word which en­com­pass­es the bring­ing to­geth­er of var­i­ous art forms for the greater good with peo­ple from around the world hav­ing sim­i­lar goals...the steel­pan though is the fo­cus in­stru­ment of the band.

In to­day's In­ter­na­tion­al Steel­band com­pe­ti­tion at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, she will be lin­ing up with Trinidad All Stars.Where did you grow up?I lived for the first three years of my life in Ma­coya but since then, Bel­mont has been my home.

At what schools/in­sti­tu­tions did you re­ceive your ed­u­ca­tion?

New­town Girls' RC, then for one year at South East Port-of-Spain High School, then on to St Joseph's Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, from where I re­ceived a full schol­ar­ship to North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty. Then it was on to Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty, where I cur­rent­ly am.

Who have been the biggestear­ly in­flu­ences in your life?

My par­ents, first and fore­most. Out­side of that, mu­si­cal­ly, Odessa Vin­cent-Brown from the age of five.

Tell us about your in­spi­ra­tion an­den­cour­age­ment to do the type of "work" you do.

Again, my par­ents, my dad a pi­ano play­er, who would ac­com­pa­ny me as a child. Now, see­ing peo­ple like Liam Teague, Cliff Alex­is and Am­rit Sama­roo who are mu­sic pro­fes­sion­als.

Which of your work(s) do you rate as the most sat­is­fy­ing and mem­o­rable?

It has to be our most re­cent con­cert a cou­ple of days ago at the Hy­att in Port-of-Spain, our band Pas­tiche Steel En­sem­ble and the launch of the Vir­tu­al Steel­band.

This was spe­cial and very dif­fer­ent, es­pe­cial­ly with the launch of the Vir­tu­al Steel­band, which was in­spired by Er­ic Whitacre, a Gram­my-win­ning com­pos­er and con­duc­tor, known for his Vir­tu­al Choir projects, which brought in­di­vid­ual voic­es from around the globe to­geth­er in­to an on­line choir. It's the same con­cept ex­cept for the steel­pan.

What dai­ly mot­to/cre­do do you live by...your recipe for suc­cess?

Stay­ing pos­i­tive even when there are road­blocks in life, some doors may close but oth­ers will open, all God's plan, his will, not yours.

What was the most dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion you ever had to make?

Whether to con­tin­ue to study and pur­sue my PhD or start work­ing. As fate would have it, I was able to do both as FSU al­lowed me that op­por­tu­ni­ty. Two more years to go to at­tain my PhD!

What is your favourite pas­time/in­ter­est/hob­by out­side­of per­form­ing/play­ing?

I am a movie buff, I love to go to the cin­e­ma when time per­mits. I like and ap­pre­ci­ate the cre­ative work that goes in­to films. Any type of movie ex­cept hor­ror, please!

What goals and am­bi­tions do you still have? What are your 'steel­pan' plans for the fu­ture?

I would like to build a ca­reer here at home ei­ther in acad­e­mia re­lat­ed to mu­sic or in the mu­sic in­dus­try it­self.

If you could in­ter­view or dine with any­one, liv­ing or dead, who would it be and why? And what ques­tion would you be ea­ger to ask?

There are so many great peo­ple, but the one that comes to mind is Nel­son Man­dela. How did he sur­vive and over­come? I would love to know what his per­son­al­i­ty was like by be­ing up close with him for at least a cou­ple hours.

Where do you see the fu­ture of the steel­pan and the steel band­move­ment?

The steel­pan/steel band move­ment is so huge abroad, it is re­al­ly mind-bog­gling that our na­tion­al in­stru­ment, cre­at­ed right here in our is­land, is spread­ing so rapid­ly world­wide. So the fu­ture is bright. Our chal­lenge is to at­tract younger au­di­ences to our per­for­mances even though the ma­jor­i­ty of pan­nists are young...a con­tra­dic­tion yes, but cer­tain­ly a chal­lenge.

Which is your favourite piece of steel­band mu­sic and a favourite ca­lyp­so?

Woman on the Bass by All Stars, and I like the Lord Pre­tender's Nev­er Ever Wor­ry be­cause it echoes my phi­los­o­phy in life.

What is your great­es­tac­com­plish­ment in the steel­pan are­na?

I have on­ly just be­gun, so that's yet to come.

Of all your shows, con­certs, per­for­mances, which would you like a first-time au­di­ence, lis­ten­er or view­er to ex­pe­ri­ence?

That would be my recital in 2009 at Queen's Hall, where I was able to play a va­ri­ety of mu­sic which is so im­por­tant in show­cas­ing the ver­sa­til­i­ty of the in­stru­ment. So many peo­ple tend to as­so­ciate the steel­pan with ca­lyp­so, so­ca and reg­gae.

Of all your ac­co­lades, prizes and awards, which do you rateas ex­treme­ly spe­cial?

All are spe­cial, just be­ing con­sid­ered for an award makes me so grate­ful.

What is an in­ter­est­ing facet of your per­son­al­i­ty that most peo­ple do not know about you?

That I am goofy at times with my friends, the clown in a way, I like to make peo­ple laugh.

What is the best com­pli­men­ty­ou have every re­ceived?

That I have a re­al­ly nice smile. I like that since I con­sid­er my­self very friend­ly and ap­proach­able, so I like to think that my smile puts out pos­i­tive en­er­gy.

What ad­vice would you give to the coun­try's lead­ers to cre­ate a bet­ter so­ci­ety?

Lis­ten to the young peo­ple. En­cour­age them to be vo­cal. In­clude us in the de­ci­sion mak­ing. Not just pay us lip ser­vice in that re­gard. Cre­ate a tan­gi­ble mech­a­nism and im­ple­ment it for us to have in­put and be part of the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process.

What ad­vice would you give to the young peo­ple of T&T?

To keep push­ing for­ward and pur­sue your goals. Stay pos­i­tive in the face of ad­ver­si­ty, the road will be rocky, and things won't al­ways go your way. Try your best to al­ways see the glass as half full. With that men­tal­i­ty and fo­cus, you will be suc­cess­ful in life. Be­ing hap­py and pos­i­tive are choic­es you can make.

De­scribe your­self in two words–one be­gin­ning with M, the oth­er with G, your ini­tials.

Metic­u­lous and Gen­uine. I am metic­u­lous about my mu­sic and per­for­mance. I like to make sure that every­thing is right, well planned, and well re­hearsed. Peo­ple have told me that they think I am gen­uine. I try my best to stay true to my­self.