Bmobile brand ambassador Brian Lara, left, and UN Secretary-General Special representative and head of the UN office for West Africa and Sahel (UNOWAS), Dr Mohamed Chambas, Minister of Trade and Industry Paula Gopee-Scoon and Emancipation Support Committee chairman Khafra Kambon chat during the launch of the 17th annual Trans-Atlantic Trade and Industry Symposium at the Hilton Trinidad, St, Ann's, on Monday.
Government wants the Pan in Schools project to go Africa, Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon says.
She made the disclosure at the 17th Annual Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Symposium at the Hilton Trinidad, Port-of-Spain, on Monday, telling the Emancipation Support Committee executive she planned to follow up on this initiative.
Saying pan is not present in Africa, Gopee-Scoon said she wanted to see more of T&T’s culture going into Africa. Comparing the deepening of T&T’s footprint into Africa last year with this year, she said the momentum has been “tremendous.”
“Our pan though, is not evident enough in Africa and I know that there is some movement in that area, Nigeria and little bit of it in Ghana. Our pan in the classrooms, there should be pan in every classroom in Africa,” she said.
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David and Steve: Thanks for the updates!!! You all should come on the forum from time to time and tell us more along with sharing some STEELBAND MUSIC -- South Africa style!!!
A group of Cape Town-based steelpan educators and enthusiasts, with assistance from the local T&T High Commission and at the invitation of the University of the West Indies, is planning a tour to Trinidad in 2018 to establish formal ties with the pan community there and to learn more about the instrument that we love and the culture it was born out of.
Lest we be forgotten down here on the Southern tip of Africa:-
Steelbands have been active in South Africa since Prof. Andrew Tracey brought the first set over here to Grahamstown in 1970! Since then the popularity of the pan has grown exponentially so that there are currently possibly as many as 100 steelbands (mainly school-based) throughout the country.
We also have the annual Cape Town Steelband Festival in April, and the International Marimba & Steelband Festival in Johannesburg, a well as regular pan festivals in the Eastern Cape Province, where some of the oldest and most advanced bands are based.
The University of the Western Cape, Cape Town also runs a tertiary diploma programme for pan educators
For further information see "Steelband Project", "Cape Town Steelband Festival", "Steelbands SA" on Facebook and www.steelband.co.za
thanks for this info David and Steve. I recently stumbled on the Steelband and Marimba festival and fell in love with the videos I saw. I'm hoping that in the near future I can attend. I will take a look at the other festivals too.
Thanks for keeping SA on the map, David! For those who don't know, David was one of the early pioneers of teaching pan in South Africa.
At one time the Eastern Cape Province Education Board had a formal pan syllabus for students to follow, although I don't know what became of it.
Andrew Tracey had already been running his Steelband in Johannesburg/Krugersdorp & surrounds from some time in the late 60's up til about 1977, when he moved it down to Grahamstown when the International Library of African Music became attached to Rhodes University.
I got involved in early 1982, and built my first pan that year. The fact that no Trinidadians were prepared to talk to me or sell me a pan at that time was a major contributing factor to me embarking on a career as a pan tuner - if I could have bought one I would probably not have attempted to make one, and I wouldn't be doing this fulltime today!.
The first full steelbands outside of Andrew Tracey's group were 3 schools in Orapa, Botswana who purchased instruments in 1993. After my visit to Trinidad in 93/94 I almost could not keep up with demand for pans from schools and the instruments' popularity exploded across South Africa.
I am all for this ...don't get me wrong... and not to change the focus of the article.. But I'm curious, I'm not too familiar with recent operations of the pan in schools program in T&T so maybe somebody can enlighten me...
Is there a pan in every classroom in Trinidad AND Tobago?
How has the Pan in Schools project benefited students.. separate and similar to what they get in the Pan Yard?
What local opportunities have arisen out of pushing Pan In Schools in other countries? Is there a link? Do they do foreign exchange and encourage collaborations within the schools? Are our students exposed to how other cultures use and in-print on the pan?
Are there specialized programs(by specialized, I mean is this just the music teacher teaching pan as a segment of music class or is this more of a curriculum thing)?
I guess my next question would be . with all this talk about money recently... would I be crazy to ask if these teachers are being compensated?
Just curious.....