One hundred steelpan players drawn from four of the UK’s top steel bands will play for Her Majesty at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations at Buckingham Palace on Sunday 5 June.
The combined steel band featuring 25 players from each of the four bands: Ebony Steelband, Mangrove Steel Orchestra, Croydon Steel Orchestra and Metronomes. Appropriately, in the centenary year of the Grandmaster’s birth, the music was 'Pan in 'A' Minor' and 'London is the Place for Me' by the late Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts), arranged by Andre White. Pans were tuned by Birch Kelman and Dudley Dickson, and the musical director for the performance was to be Leon ‘Foster’ Thomas.
Click image, BELOW, for original performance...
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My family and I sat patiently watching the pageant coverage on Sunday, so as not to miss this momentous occurrence. For the first time in the history of it's existence, Pan, the instrument, was being officially included in a major national celebration in Britain. 100 players from 4 bands contributed their time, enthusiasm and energy to make this happen. The contribution was filmed by the BBC because the footage is available on social media. However, someone in the BBC production team chose to show us interviews with Lulu and others and chose to deny us our 5 minutes of national air time. We can speculate endlessly as to why the decision was made and I hope the culprits identity remains unknown for his or her sake. What is needed now is an official apology from the BBC for this grossly offensive omission and a broadcast of the full 5 minutes on one of their daily national broadcasts, such as Breakfast. My son spoke to one of his fellow players from Mangrove about the omission and his simple response was "that's white people". Something needs to be done about this urgently. He's right!
That was very disrespectful. But why am I not surprised.
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