Parkview Intermediate music director had a few steel drums and an idea
The Caribbean sound of steel drums may have seemed exotic amid the steel guitars at this year’s San Jacinto Day Festival in La Porte, and that was part of the fun.
Four years ago, when Garrett Sanborne, the music and fine arts director at Park View Intermediate School, inherited a few steel drums from the San Jacinto College Central music department, he was intrigued by the idea of introducing his own band students to a different cultural experience and exposing that music to a home-town crowd.
“That basically planted the seed,” Sanborne said.
The Park View Intermediate Steel Drum band started out with five students from the school’s marching band, but in the four years since, membership has grown to somewhere between 20 to 25 players at any given time.
It wasn’t a hard sell, Sanborne said.
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