Arts Council of Greater New Haven
...“We really wanted to focus on the music,” said Mandi Jackson, executive director of Music Haven. “We’re celebrating 10 years of collaboration of these organizations, but also the spirit of the day.”
The change feels right on time. In 2010, the concert started as an experiment between violist Colin Benn, who was then a musician in residence at Music Haven, and steel pan teacher and composer Deborah Fischer Teason. Joseph, who conducts the steel band, had just arrived in New Haven “and was sort of thrown into it.” In 10 years, both organizations have grown in number, pushing them to look for larger spaces.
After making a home at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Whalley Avenue—right next to Music Haven’s original home—the concert moved in 2016 to Christ Church on Broadway, and then in 2018 to First & Summerfield on Elm Street. There have been keynote addresses, readings from students, and awards ceremonies along the way...
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| Kenneth Joseph: "For me, it’s much bigger than myself and more about the instrument. It’s how we showcase this in a positive light.” |
But with it also existed a resolve that was palpable: hundreds of people in the same space, listening to the same musicians who had worked for hours to get to a single point. Hundreds of ears that were reminded, in a single moment, that the arc of history bends more easily when there are several hands supporting it.
When he conducts, Joseph said, he remembers that the steel pan itself is a product of forced migration, enslavement, and diaspora. Centuries after enslaved Africans had their hand drums taken from them—and decades after the music has become a robust presence in the U.S.— he still turns to the instrument as a way to remember a history of resilience in the face of cruelty.
“He [King, Jr.] fought for freedom and equality,” Joseph said. “One thing about the steel pan instrument is that we also had to fight for a name for ourselves to make the instrument something. For me, it’s much bigger than myself and more about the instrument. It’s how we showcase this in a positive light.”
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