Joel Julien

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

Over the past few weeks, the steel­pan has been in the glob­al spot­light.

On Sun­day, a steel­pan ver­sion of the T&T Na­tion­al An­them was heard twice around Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, as Jereem Richards, and then this coun­try’s 4x400 men’s re­lay team, col­lect­ed their Com­mon­wealth Games gold medals.

And last month, the steel­pan was fea­tured as a Google Doo­dle on the 71st an­niver­sary of the Trinidad All-Steel Pan Per­cus­sion Or­ches­tra’s (TASPO) per­for­mance at the Fes­ti­val of Britain, which in­tro­duced the steel­pan and a new mu­sic genre to the world.

But while there is no deny­ing that the steel­pan has been ac­cept­ed and ac­claimed glob­al­ly, the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the or­ches­tra with the most Panora­ma ti­tles be­lieves more needs to be done for the in­stru­ment lo­cal­ly.

“The steel­pan has reached glob­al al­ready but the prob­lem I have is that not much is be­ing done in T&T for the steel­pan, not the steel­bands, the ac­tu­al in­stru­ment,” Des­per­a­does’ Lyn­don Spencer said.

“I think many peo­ple ap­pre­ci­ate the steel­pan much more out­side of T&T than ac­tu­al­ly in T&T. I know they are try­ing but I think more can be done for the in­stru­ment.”

To­day, the Mu­si­cal In­stru­ments of Trinidad and To­ba­go Com­pa­ny (MITTCO) is sched­uled to open its man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty on World Steel­pan Day.

Spencer said he be­lieves World Steel­pan Day is a good time to cel­e­brate the achieve­ments of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

“We are cel­e­brat­ing some­thing that a lot of peo­ple worked hard to en­sure we have now. It is im­por­tant for the world to know that the Mec­ca of steel­pan cel­e­brates the in­stru­ment that was born here,” Spencer said.

Des­per­a­does has claimed a to­tal of 12 Panora­ma ti­tles.

How­ev­er, Spencer said it is much more than just an or­ches­tra.

On June 12, Des­per­a­does elect­ed its in­au­gur­al board of di­rec­tors.

“We changed the whole struc­ture of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. We have tried to move away from the cap­tain and man­ag­er of the band struc­ture. Des­per­a­does is more than a band, it is an ac­tu­al com­pa­ny and we have put the cor­po­rate struc­ture to the or­gan­i­sa­tion,” he said.

“It is not just Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra, it is Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra com­pa­ny.”

One of the things Spencer is hop­ing for is that Des­per­a­does will have a per­ma­nent home be­fore the next World Steel­pan Day.

The Gov­ern­ment has promised them a new home on Nel­son Street in Port-of-Spain. But the move is a bit­ter-sweet one, he said.

“Al­though the or­ches­tra and or­gan­i­sa­tion ap­pre­ci­ate the new home, we still feel that mov­ing from where we are right now will kind of put a damper on the or­ches­tra be­cause of the area we are mov­ing in,” he said.

“They say the area is go­ing to be re­vi­talised but a lot of peo­ple are still ner­vous to move from Tra­garete road. We ap­pre­ci­ate the ges­ture from the Gov­ern­ment but al­so have to look out for our play­ers, our sup­port­ers and the peo­ple who con­cern Des­per­a­does and Laven­tille,” he said.

The new home was ex­pect­ed to have been fin­ished in June but Spencer said he is not sure when it will be com­plet­ed.

“We don’t have an ac­tu­al com­ple­tion date now when­ev­er it is fin­ished it is fin­ished,” he said.