Advertise With Us
About Us
Listen
Watch

Login

/

Subscribe

Home

News

Carnival

Business

Sports

E-Paper

Features

Opinion

Traffic Cameras

Life

Classifieds

Death Notices

Community

Real Estate

About Us

Contact Us

Home
News
Carnival
Sports
E-paper
Business
Classifieds
Other
Death Notices
Traffic Cameras
Covid-19
Features
Opinion
Games
Subscriptions
Real Estate

Pan creates another historic feat mere weeks before Steelpan Month

by

#meta[ag-author]
20220804072140
20220804
Members of the T&T National Steel Symphony Orchestra (NSSO) pose with their musical director, Akua Leith, front right.

Members of the T&T National Steel Symphony Orchestra (NSSO) pose with their musical director, Akua Leith, front right.

SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­san­dral@ya­hoo.com

It’s Steel­pan (pan) Month from Au­gust 1 to 31, and it’s no se­cret that pan had its share of licks, but it has ma­tured and pu­ri­fied to great ex­tents.

His­to­ry re­veals that the de­vel­oped, so­phis­ti­cat­ed in­stru­ment came from deep strug­gles yet played its way in­to Carnegie and Roy­al Al­bert Halls; drew British Roy­al­ty to lo­cal pa­n­yards; be­came a part of Pres­i­dents, Prime Min­is­ters and many oth­er dis­tin­guished in­di­vid­u­als’ life.

In 2012 pan was adopt­ed in Is­rael as a peace-pro­mot­ing tool via the cur­rent­ly-run Peace Drums Project; some high-pro­file in­ter­na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ties’ Mas­ter’s mu­sic pro­grams em­brace pan. Pan cre­ates uni­ty and har­mo­ny. For decades, re­li­gious bod­ies have adopt­ed pan.

Two uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents from In­dia who were do­ing their the­sis on pan in 2006 at a Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra pan work­shop--A Dream Come True, Pan--said “Pan is a mes­meris­ing gift to the world that ei­ther puts you in a trance or in a fren­zy, and what bet­ter place to com­plete it than in its birth­place, T&T.”

On Ju­ly 5 of this year (2022), for the very-first time any an­them was played on pan dur­ing an Olympic medal cer­e­mo­ny. It was T&T’s Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra (NSSO) that did his­toric jus­tice at the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee’s (IOC) Medal Re­al­lo­ca­tion Cer­e­mo­ny, at the Olympic Mu­se­um in Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, with their record­ed ver­sion of Forged for the Love of Lib­er­ty.

Mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Akua Lei­th said he ho­n­oured the re­quest of the for­mer pres­i­dent of the TTOC, Bri­an Lewis, and fol­lowed every re­quire­ment laid out by the IOC.

The gold medal was re­al­lo­cat­ed to T&T’s 2008 Bei­jing Olympic men’s 4x100 me­ter re­lay team that ad­vanced from sil­ver ow­ing to the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of the for­mer gold medal­lists for an in­frac­tion.

His­to­ry states that pan was in­vent­ed in 1939; T&T first com­pet­ed at Olympics un­der the then-new na­tion­al colours, red, black and white in 1964, two years af­ter gain­ing In­de­pen­dence but de­spite hav­ing won gold in 1976 and 2012, an­thems were played by the tra­di­tion­al wind and string or­ches­tras.

In 1992, T&T’s then Prime Min­is­ter, the late Patrick Man­ning, de­clared pan T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

The nov­el pan-play­ing an­them at Olympics was the brain­child, pro­pos­al and fol­low through of Lewis who said it was an up­hill bat­tle to the ap­proval which hap­pened Jan­u­ary of this year.

The body of the TTOC trade­mark reg­is­tered in 2016 is that of a pan, and the IOC said they “en­cour­age cul­tur­al ex­change and pro­mote the di­ver­si­ty of cul­tures.”

To­day, T&T’s ath­letes are ready­ing them­selves to ful­fill the TTOC’s medal man­date of 10 golds 24 cham­pi­oned by Lewis from 2015. Once T&T achieves gold, the na­tion­al an­them will be heard on pure-bred T&T pan – NSSO-record­ed – and au­to­mat­i­cal­ly mar­ket­ed to over “three bil­lion” lis­ten­ing au­di­ence.

Lei­th has played and con­duct­ed tours through­out Eu­rope, Asia, North Amer­i­ca, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, South Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. He is a Ful­bright Fel­low and grad­u­at­ed from North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty with a Mas­ters of Mu­sic in Con­duct­ing with em­pha­sis on Steel­pan Per­for­mance. He is al­so a teacher of the steel­pan and di­rec­tor of the steel­pan man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny, MITTCO.

TTOC’s pres­i­dent, Di­ane Hen­der­son, said of her hear­ing the na­tion­al an­them played on pan at the cer­e­mo­ny, “It was sur­re­al…to be a part of this his­toric mo­ment.”


Click HERE to Login

Want FREE access to all our content? Sign up HERE!

Tagged in:

Responses

Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Trending

Man in viral video hitting woman captured
Soca Monarch competition cancelled
Spent shell with TTPS marking found at murder scene
Retired senior cop awarded $200,000 in damages
Cocorite man killed at home
$300,000 missing from Siparia Corporation
Dolsingh knighted by Queen of Denmark
Kamla: No retreat, no surrender
Double murder in Blanchisseuse
Man gunned down following high-speed chase in Debe
Today's
Guardian
View
Subscribe

Publications

Numbness in your feet?

20230123072450

Your walking gear matters!

20230116101944
Sat Balkaransingh

Sat Balkaransingh

Photo by Wesley Gibbings

Sat Balkaransingh

Sat Balkaransingh

Photo by Wesley Gibbings

The Wanderers–Sat Balkaransingh in verse

20230117074645
Vic Susanna Surajdeen with her children's Book "The Adventures Of Heidi The Boxer Pup!"

Vic Susanna Surajdeen with her children's Book "The Adventures Of Heidi The Boxer Pup!"

Vic Susanna Surajdeen with her children's Book "The Adventures Of Heidi The Boxer Pup!"

Vic Susanna Surajdeen with her children's Book "The Adventures Of Heidi The Boxer Pup!"

Beloved pet dog’s death inspires children’s book

20230112202635
Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

News

Business

Sports

Life

Opinion

Tobago Today

Classifieds

Death Notices

Subscriptions

Real Estate

Categories

News
Business
Sports
Features
Opinion
Traffic Cameras
Death Notices

INFORMATION

About Us
Contact Us
Advertise With Us
Privacy Policy
Subscriptions
Terms of Services

Digital Media

The Big Board Company.
Real Estate
Classifieds

TELEVISION

CNC3 Television

RADIO

951 Remix
Sangeet 106.1 FM
Sky 99.5FM
Slam 100.5 FM
Vibe CT 105 FM
Mix 90.1 FM (Guyana)
Freedom 106.5 FM

About Us

Guardian Media is the premier provider of multimedia solutions and authoritative insight on news, politics, business, finance, sports, and current affairs. Our brand portfolio includes CNC3, Guardian, TBC Radio Network and The Big Board Company.

Contact us

Send us an e-mail here or call us at +1-(868)-225-4465

Follow us