SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Trinidad and To­ba­go ed­u­ca­tor and mul­ti­ple-award-win­ning pan play­er/com­pos­er Dr Ray Hol­man was a guest pan­man at the third an­nu­al Phoenix Pan Ris­ing Fes­ti­val (PPRF): A Fes­ti­val of Steel­pan, in Phoenix, Ari­zona, USA, on April 3, and at the 15th an­nu­al Tuc­son Field of Steel (TFS) con­cert in Tuc­son a day lat­er. He al­so con­duct­ed two clin­ics and vis­it­ed the Mu­si­cal In­stru­ment Mu­se­um, where he “fact-checked the ex­hib­it,” ac­cord­ing to Wes Hawkins, Phoenix Col­lege (PC) pro­fes­sor, mu­sic ed­u­ca­tor/teacher/per­cus­sion­ist and per­former.

Hawkins, an Amer­i­can, said the event was a sam­pling of mu­si­cal styles from around the world.

The PPRF was di­rect­ed by Hawkins, and the TFS by Dr Christi­na “Tina” Wal­ton.

At the clin­ics, Hol­man coached, ad­dressed au­di­ences, and en­gaged in Q&A. For the con­certs, he per­formed Steel­band Par­adise, Sam­ba de Ar­ca­ta, Pan on the Move, and Suzie from his com­pi­la­tion.

Among his per­for­mances, Hol­man graced Mass Bands; a con­cept found­ed in 1966 by Dr Dave Wal­ton, ac­cord­ing to Tina Wal­ton. She al­so stat­ed that Hol­man re­galed the au­di­ence with both pop­u­lar mu­sic and his orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions.

Be­sides di­rec­tors and co­or­di­na­tors, at­ten­dees in­clud­ed lone steel­pan mu­sic teacher for the Sheely Farms El­e­men­tary dis­trict Mar­sha D Thomas, founder of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona, Tuc­son’s steel­band pro­gramme; re­tired per­cus­sion pro­fes­sor Gary Cook and Wal­ton.

Hawkins paid his first vis­it to T&T this year to specif­i­cal­ly ob­serve the na­tion­al Panora­ma medi­um and large band fi­nals. This val­i­dat­ed for him, that the Phoenix fes­ti­val name is ap­pro­pri­ate and al­so his fo­cus for it be­ing on ed­u­ca­tion and cul­tur­al en­rich­ment.

“I want bands of all lev­els to par­tic­i­pate and help raise aware­ness about this amaz­ing in­stru­ment across the state of Ari­zona; dis­cov­er why it is vir­tu­al­ly im­pos­si­ble not to be hap­py in the pres­ence of steel­pan mu­sic.”

Hawkins’ bands, Rhythm is Life and PC Pan Groove, and DV Steel, Man­i­tas Steel DRUM En­sem­bles, Fal­con Steel, UA Steel Cats, Blue Steel, Raven Steel, Jovert, and ASA Steel, are said to have got­ten Hol­man’s bless­ings ei­ther via per­form­ing with, of­fer­ing ad­vice or com­mend­ing.

Hol­man de­part­ed Ari­zona fol­low­ing a pri­vate gath­er­ing host­ed by Ruth and George Par­sons.

Af­ter his re­turn, he shared, “I was very pleased. The events were well-or­gan­ised, and I was heart­ened by the re­cep­tion I got from the au­di­ence and the bands.”