by Wesley Gibbings
Provided by, and republished with, the expressed permission of: the Author
Trinidad & Tobago, W.I. - Let’s face it, notwithstanding the severe difficulties currently being faced by the organisation with overall responsibility for the steel band movement, the annual Panorama competition has not been the “disaster” described by people who are indifferent to the value of the instrument as creative expression and as a socio-economic resource.
It is true that pan is much, much more than this decades’ old contest for musical supremacy employing rather rigid standards worthy of constant review. But it has played an important part in asserting a well-founded truism that in T&T we have the best steel bands in the world capable of playing the music of the greatest pan arrangers, on instruments blended by the leading pan tuners anywhere on the planet.
We also need to recognise that Panorama, as a competitive music festival, is unique in its employment of an indigenous instrument, together with the social and cultural modalities that make steel bands work. In this respect, there is nothing else like it outside of the Caribbean, though we have had to invent and reinvent ways of getting things to work over the many years.
Trinidad and Tobago National PanoramaHowever, none of this is to suggest that we have always been able to get everything right. The recent elections to install a new executive committee to run Pan Trinbago raised most of the vexing issues...
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patrick, breakfast events does challenge meh loyalties, the coconut bake and salt-fish, black pudding and hops, ah still ending up going fuh something wid sauce in it, like doubles a breakfast fuh champions…
Pan Elders - Roti & Talkarie
Amen! Thank you Sir, I'm a firm believer in CHANGE can start from the bottom UP, teaching a sense of RESPONSIBILITY as we develop younger members. Noteworthy...
"The essential elements of transparency in the conduct of business, together with a high level of personal and collective accountability are often challenged by authoritarian instincts. These are, of course, a statement on the national condition, but no excuse for mediocre performance when it comes to the things that matter most. "
Back to School in Pan...https://sta.uwi.edu/fhe/education/sites/default/files/education/doc...
"In keeping with this insight Lloyd saw the panyard as natural zone of community mobilization, individual industry, discipline and talent through the production of music. He saw the panyard as a platform for generating direct services in music of course but also a range of other related activities and trades. In addition to concert type performances, there could be CDs and other services such as school feeding, designer clothes, homework centers, the teaching of all kinds of music. In addition, since touring is an essential aspect of the bands, tours could be a vehicle for marketing all of the products of Trinidad and Tobago." An overhaul of panorama competition could see competition not just on music but also different aspects of the panyard environment.
"An ideal would be that a panyard have facilities for staging its grand performances and so generate revenues while having all of its various spin off options. A properly administered grand festival of pan music that is sold to the world in this mecca of pan could generate foreign exchange for the country overall as well as for the individual bands and their members."
Thank you Pan Times/WST.
odw, we starting off with breakfast.