It took one year to craft and one night to wow hun­dreds on the big screen with a huge sto­ry be­hind the lo­cal doc­u­men­tary “Du­vone Stew­art: The Man Be­hind The Mu­sic,” a Mark Lo­quan pro­duc­tion.

The doc­u­men­tary nav­i­gates cham­pi­on arranger, To­ba­go-born Du­vone Stew­art’s pain, growth, and mu­si­cal heal­ing in the wake of the heart­break­ing loss of a loved one to gun vi­o­lence on Nel­son Street in Port-of-Spain, back in 2017.

The pre­miere of the first of the three-part doc­u­men­tary se­ries, ‘Year For Love’ con­cen­trat­ed on how Stew­art pushed through the pain and chan­nelled his en­er­gies to ar­rang­ing Aaron ‘Voice’ St Louis’ ‘Year For Love’ with bp rene­gades, win­ning Panora­ma 2018. This his­toric win marked a tri­umphant re­turn to glo­ry for the Panora­ma cham­pi­ons, end­ing a 20-year ti­tle drought, and her­ald­ed a dom­i­nant streak since, with Stew­art at the helm.

On Oc­to­ber 13, the doc­u­men­tary’s pre­miere drew a di­verse crowd at Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain, with a line snaking out the door, ea­ger­ly await­ing the film. Among the au­di­ence were in­di­vid­u­als of all ages, ded­i­cat­ed pan afi­ciona­dos, skilled steel­pan play­ers, and res­i­dents of Nel­son Street, who were keen to wit­ness the sto­ry told.

Stew­art’s To­bag­on­ian roots al­so res­onat­ed, at­tract­ing a size­able To­ba­go con­tin­gent and dig­ni­taries from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly who made the jour­ney ex­press­ly for the event. Movi­eTowne pro­vid­ed a free screen to fa­cil­i­tate free ad­mis­sion to the pre­miere.

Mark Lo­quan, the ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er, un­der­scor­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of this project, em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of themes like ‘Year for Love’, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of the per­va­sive crime is­sues in T&T. Lo­quan shared, “I hope when you watch this, you are in­spired, and hope­ful­ly, it touch­es you in some way emo­tion­al­ly. It cer­tain­ly did for me as I lis­tened to his sto­ry and wit­nessed the raw emo­tions on his bal­cony.”

This mas­ter­ful­ly craft­ed doc­u­men­tary, the third in the Mark Lo­quan Mu­sic brand, con­tin­ues its mis­sion to cu­rate and cel­e­brate the peo­ple in the steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty. Un­der the ‘A Bet­ter To­mor­row’ ban­ner, the se­ries seeks to up­lift and in­spire, pro­vid­ing an en­rich­ing nar­ra­tive that ex­tends be­yond the realm of mu­sic.

Dur­ing the live Ques­tion and An­swer (Q&A) seg­ment, Stew­art of­fered poignant in­sights in­to his own phys­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion and emo­tion­al jour­ney, shed­ding light on his re­mark­able 240-pound weight loss and the trans­for­ma­tive im­pact of the Nel­son Street tragedy on his life. The sec­ond and third parts of the doc­u­men­tary delve in­to Stew­art’s for­ma­tive years on the sis­ter isle, and oth­er in­ti­mate as­pects of his life. These seg­ments ex­plore the valu­able lessons learned from poor de­ci­sion-mak­ing and run­ning with the wrong crowd.

Stew­art al­so fer­vent­ly called for a re­vival of steel­pan mu­sic with­in the na­tion’s school cur­ricu­lum, un­der­lin­ing the im­por­tance of the role of nur­tur­ing the steel­pan as a tool to fight crime and to in­spire.

The live Q&A pan­el al­so fea­tured di­rec­tor and pro­duc­er Maria Nunes and as­so­ciate pro­duc­er Wen­dell Man­war­ren, who en­gaged deeply with the en­thu­si­as­tic au­di­ence.

Du­vone Stew­art: The Man Be­hind The Mu­sic is more than just a doc­u­men­tary; it’s a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to the hu­man spir­it’s re­silience and the re­demp­tive pow­er of mu­sic. In the heart of T&T, this sto­ry re­ver­ber­ates as a bea­con of hope and a re­minder of the en­dur­ing spir­it of the steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty.

About Du­vone Stew­art

Age: 47

No­table roles: mu­si­cian, pan­nist, com­pos­er, steel­pan arranger

Ear­ly start: Be­gan his mu­si­cal jour­ney at the age of six with Trin­i­ty Mu­sic Ex­ams (Lon­don School of Mu­sic).

Pas­sion for steel­pan: De­vel­oped an un­wa­ver­ing love for steel­pan af­ter vis­it­ing a pa­n­yard with his par­ents.

First steel­band: Joined the Trin­toc To­ba­go All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra in To­ba­go, his in­au­gur­al steel­band ex­pe­ri­ence.

Panora­ma dom­i­na­tion: Stew­art is the on­ly arranger in the mod­ern panora­ma era to achieve vic­to­ry in all panora­ma cat­e­gories:

• Sin­gle Pan (LH Pan Groove and San Juan East Side)

• Small Bands (Meri­tones and Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force)

• Medi­um Bands (Pan El­ders)

• Large Bands (bp Rene­gades)

Lega­cy: Stew­art’s un­par­al­leled lega­cy in­cludes a re­mark­able 2019 feat, where he emerged vic­to­ri­ous in all three con­ven­tion­al cat­e­gories (Small, Medi­um, and Large) with De­fence Force, Pan El­ders, and bp Rene­gades, so­lid­i­fy­ing his sta­tus as a steel­pan leg­end.

Great­est per­son­al achieve­ment: Los­ing 240 pounds (now 160 pounds)

His favs

Coun­try: Mal­dives/Cana­da

To­ba­go: Eng­lish­man’s Bay

Singer: Ste­vie Won­der

Movies: Bat­man, V for Vendet­ta, Li­on King, Drum­line

Quote: “Be a leader, not a fol­low­er.”

Elu­sive goal: To be the best ver­sion of me.

Pet peeve: Talk­ing dur­ing a movie.