PAN-JUMBIE

Title: Pan In Education 2
Artist: Various Steelbands

Pan in Education 2 (PIE 2) is a continuing journey to document Trinidad & Tobago's local music for the world stage, not only for the sake of preservation, but as a tool for education.

The first in the series PIE 1 was launched in October 2005 (ref. eCaroh and Sanch).  Like PIE 1, this double CD contains one CD with audio recordings, with the second CD containing a digital interface to all the musical scores of the arrangements, and biographies of the bands and arrangers. Grading of the scores are again done by Satanand Sharma, Head of the Department of Creative and Festival Arts, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.

PIE 2 continues as a labor of love, and goes beyond PIE 1 in a few dimensions. School and University bands are included to a greater extent with Golden Hands San Fernando, Trinidad; Miami University Steel Band of Cincinnati, Ohio; and Northern Illinois University (NIU) Steel Band. The project includes recordings ranging from a small ensemble to medium and large steelbands. Even choral arrangements with pan are added using the Lydian Singers and Steel Orchestra, and scores of pan arrangements transcribed for conventional orchestra by Gary Gibson (who also arranges one of the pieces on PIE 2) are included.

Music literacy is also emphasized as a tool for our talented panists who increasingly find themselves surrounded by a global community of musicians. Hence an animation depicting the importance of music literacy in today's world was also included in the project.

Mark Loquan states that he hopes to continue the journey of composing music for the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, while at the same time emphasizing the importance of preservation and education. The methodology is a model of all to utilize on the path of sustainability of T&T's local music and arrangements with their national instrument at the centre of the stage.

→ Mark Loquan