Pan round the world

Replacing the spirited guitars of the Gypsy Kings in Moorea, the Steel Ensemble offered a flamenco dance of pan and brass at the May 6 event. The brass notes were manly and striding, but were soon caressed by soft and swaying pan tones, groovy and feminine .

Pan, plus brass, joined in the Indian Classical Ensemble’s lively and unique rendition of the 1980 Bollywood disco-styled hit Aap Jaisa Koi, among others. Even in Takeda’s Lullaby, a 1969 Japanese song of a young girl watching the mountains and yearning for her faraway family, pan held its own, as confident and adaptable .

When the Steel Ensemble took centre stage, pan comfortably drifted back in time 300 years ago to so elegantly play Handell’s Water Music, Hornpipe, of 1717 .

Opera star Andrea Bocelli’s Con Te Partido was beautifully handled by pan en masse, with solo vocalist Sadie Baxter, conducted by Jessel Murray .

The Steel Ensemble also offered the carefree saunter of Morning Dance by Jay Beckenstein, Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud, Ben E King’s Stand By Me, and two local pan compositions namely Mark Loquan’s Pan Kingdom and Pan Groove composed by UWI student Raine Rivas .

Pan’s parent, the African drum, also took centre-stage .

The Drumming Ensemble provided a powerful backing to the impassioned rendition of Ella Andall’s Missing Generation by vocalists Rondez Lewis and Christelle London, with Keisha Codrington on tenor pan and Alexander Evans on guitar. Then the 12 drummers let loose with their own passionate and pounding composition, Drumology. All in all an amazing musical journey around the world showing pan’s versatility in all climes