BARBADOS - music

Barbados Pan Festival 2004

Compliments of the

Web Posted - Fri May 28 2004

The Barbados Pan Festival has attracted so much interest in the Caribbean and beyond that steel bands from the United States and England have expressed an interest in taking part in it, and have even sent in their biographies to its organisers.

This is according to a release from producer of the festival, Mike Murray, who stated that the high number of steel bands now performing in the US and Europe showed that the following for pan music was growing internationally. He added that given the interest being shown in the Barbados Pan Festival, this country was well placed to host an internationally renowned pan festival. Murray noted that pan music was used heavily to promote tourism-related products and there was a growing number of pan lovers around the world that Barbados could attract to its shores via the event. With that in mind, Murray stated that the tourism authorities should treat the Pan Festival with the same respect now given to the Barbados Jazz Festival.

This year’s Pan Festival comes off next weekend. The first show, Pan Jazz Night, takes place on Saturday June 5 at Sunbury Plantation Great House in St. Philip, and will feature world renowned pannist Andy Narell as well as nine-time Panorama champions BP Renegades Steel Orchestra out of Trinidad. The Andre Woodvine Quartet featuring guitarist Stefan Van den Bossche and young tenor pan player Andre Forde will also be on Saturday night’s card.

On Sunday June 6, Caribbean Panorama will give patrons the atmosphere of a major pan yard in full swing, and will feature performances from Courts New Dimension steel orchestra out of Grenada, Roots Steel Band and Gemonites from Antigua and our own Banks Soundtech Steel Orchestra. This event is also being held at the Sunbury Plantation Great House.

An added attraction to this year’s festival will be a Pre-Festival after Work Lime at Time Out at the Gap on St. Lawrence Gap on Friday June 4, and there will also be a midnight after-concert Pan Lime at the same venue on Saturday June 5. The organisers of the festival will also be holding a workshop and matinee concert for schools on Saturday June 5 at the Barbados Museum starting at 3:30 p.m.

This year, patrons from Grenada, Antigua and Trinidad and Tobago can also win prize trips to Barbados for the festival via competitions being held on radio and television in those countries. In Barbados, listeners on CBC Radio 900 can win a weekend for two at the Jolly Beach Resort in Antigua, and patrons attending the festival can win on each night two nights accommodation at the Flamboyant Hotel in Grenada. The festival was recently launched in Antigua and on the new Gayelle television channel in Trinidad and Tobago. Next week the festival will be launched in Grenada.

Compliments of the Barbados Advocate

Musicians/Entertainers