Wes­ley Gib­bings

The Su­per­novas Pa­n­yard in Sur­rey Vil­lage is, un­de­ni­ably, one of the most beau­ti­ful mu­si­cal venues in the coun­try; set in the open air in the foothills of the North­ern Range and oc­cu­pied by a young steel­band that has nev­er set lim­its on its am­bi­tions.

In fact, turn­ing 15 ear­li­er this month met a band that en­joys cre­den­tials be­ly­ing its rel­a­tive youth­ful­ness. This in­cludes, but is not lim­it­ed to, a phe­nom­e­nal jump from vic­to­ry among the Small Bands in 2014 (hav­ing placed sec­ond in its first Panora­ma ex­pe­ri­ence in 2012) to sec­ond place among the Large Panora­ma Bands in 2016 in its first year at that lev­el.

Still it­self a teenag­er in na­tion­al steel­band terms, its fo­cus, ac­cord­ing to band leader Am­rit Sama­roo, has al­ways been to keep an eye on the young. If you vis­it­ed this year’s an­nu­al steel­band camp for chil­dren, such a com­mit­ment would have im­me­di­ate­ly struck you in mea­sures of joy­ful work.

Over the two weeks of mu­sic the­o­ry, steel­pan his­to­ry, per­for­mance tech­niques, and gen­er­al fun, the Lopinot hills came alive with the sound of mu­sic in­volv­ing close to 50 chil­dren be­tween the ages of six and 16.

Okay, so there was al­so LéNique Thomp­son—who is old­er than the band and oth­er campers, at 17, but with her eyes set on her first Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. For the mo­ment, she was there serv­ing as both camper and coach.

“I en­joyed work­ing with the kids help­ing them along the way be­cause I have a lit­tle bit more ex­pe­ri­ence than them,” she said. “And, you know, (broad smile) it was, um … a lot of pa­tience, but they re­al­ly did pret­ty good.”

“And … hope­ful­ly I will be get­ting to play with Su­per­novas as a band for Panora­ma 2026.”

Re­gard­ing her own de­vel­op­ment as a pan play­er, Thomp­son said the camp ex­posed her to new in­for­ma­tion and prac­tices.

“It was very ed­u­ca­tion­al. I en­joyed learn­ing a lot of new stuff. I al­ready did mu­sic in sec­ondary school, and I want­ed to fur­ther learn some more and al­so get in­to pan ful­ly. So, this was kind of a start in­to learn­ing my pan prop­er­ly,” said the dou­ble tenor play­er.

In­spi­ra­tional band leader, men­tor, and in­struc­tor, Am­rit Sama­roo, is clear that the camp pro­vides a sol­id plat­form for both mu­sic and gen­er­al ed­u­ca­tion.

But it has al­so proven to be a vi­able chan­nel for pop­u­lat­ing the Su­per­novas Youth Steel Or­ches­tra (which tied for sec­ond place in this year’s Un­der-21 Panora­ma Fi­nals), the stage side with its vast reper­toire, and the se­nior band which placed fourth at Panora­ma Fi­nals in 2025.

“This par­tic­u­lar ex­er­cise (the camp) gives them an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the in­stru­ment and mu­sic but more so get­ting fa­mil­iar with the band and get­ting fa­mil­iar with each oth­er,” Sama­roo said. Many of these very campers re­turn to mu­sic the­o­ry be­gin­ner class­es and prac­tices be­fore mov­ing on to the ju­nior band and be­yond.

“If they’re not up to scratch for the Ju­nior Panora­ma they will go across to the be­gin­ner class and get their foot in … and hope­ful­ly make the tran­si­tion in­to the se­nior stage side if it’s not Panora­ma time and then in­to the Panora­ma,” he said.

Camp co-man­ag­er, Pearl Gansam, who is a school teacher, came to the band as the non-play­ing par­ent of a young pan play­er. In her opin­ion, “the im­por­tance of team­work” was among the camp’s main area of learn­ing. “They have to play to­geth­er as a band. They have to know that every­one needs to know for their mu­sic for the band to sound good.”

“It al­so helps with their dis­ci­pline, be­cause to be there and to be be­hind the pan, and some­times they would sit there for like an hour or two prac­tic­ing the piece over and over en­sur­ing that they get it cor­rect,” she added.

“I al­so see the shy ones com­ing out, ex­press­ing them­selves, be­ing more vo­cal,” Gansam said. “Es­pe­cial­ly when they come up to the pan camp, you see them try to sit by them­selves, and then af­ter a while you just see them mak­ing friends and open­ing up.”

Pan in­struc­tor, Kim­ber­ly St Clair says, for her, one key func­tion of the camp is to help “feed the big band.”

The Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) teacher has been with the band since 2013 as a play­er and in­struc­tor. She al­so says that play­ing pan can be an emo­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence.

“For me, the whole pan ex­pe­ri­ence is just eu­phor­ic,” she said. “When you stand up be­hind the pan and you go to per­form for peo­ple, some­times you don’t even re­mem­ber that eight min­utes that you stand up for, you know.

“You’re just there, and the vibe, and the at­mos­phere, and the ca­ma­raderie with every­one. And that’s what we try to do with the camp, not just show them that … as if you come to learn pan and that’s it.”

A camp itin­er­ary in­clud­ing mu­sic the­o­ry, steel­pan his­to­ry, per­for­mance tech­niques, art and craft, games, field trips, and even a vis­it from a parang band proved her point.

Sama­roo said “it says some­thing for the de­vel­op­ment of the band” that it pays close at­ten­tion to young peo­ple with an­tic­i­pat­ed “div­i­dends” not on­ly for the band it­self but for the coun­try as a whole. It has, in the process, es­tab­lished strong bonds be­tween young peo­ple and steel­pan mu­sic.