Pan is More Beautiful to cost $9m

Pan is More Beautiful will begin on July 12 and will cost $9 million.

This information was shared at the event’s official launch on June 21 at the Radisson hotel, Port of Spain.

The pan music festival has returned to the events calendar after 11 years, with the last one held in 2013. The Prime Minister is the patron of the 2024 festival.

There have been many recent developments with pan such as the laying of the The National Musical Instrument Bill, 2024.

Tourism, Culture and the Arts Minister Randall Mitchell on June 21 said that once this bill is passed – which seeks to officially name pan as Trinidad and Tobago’s national instrument – the Government intends to continue to promote the instrument worldwide. He added that bill will be debated soon.

On the heels of the festival there are plans to host the World Steelpan Festival, scheduled to begin on August 9 as a part of the celebrations for World Steelpan Day on August 11.

He said this will bring together global pan experts to discuss the instrument’s development. There will be a concert and grand celebrations on the UN-declared World Steelpan Day.

Mitchell added that there are plans to speak with embassies, such as the Chinese, German, Japanese, to get them more involved in pan and to introduce it “to their schools, universities, music curriculum to ensure they play and broaden the horizon for steelpan.”

In response to criticisms about pan being officially named the national instrument, Mitchell said pan was only one instrument “invented, created and developed in TT."

Pan is More Beautiful will have three categories: single pan, ensemble and orchestral.

The north national single pan qualifying round will start the festival on July 12 at 7 pm at panyards and the National Orchestra Finals will end Pan is More Beautiful on August 24.

There will be a mix of local and international judges with TT-born, US-based head of Steelpan Studies at Northern Illinois University Prof Liam Teague and US composer, percussionist and educator Dr Eugene Novotney among them.

Some well-known classics like Austrian composer Johann Strauss II’s The Blue Danube Waltz will be played by participants. Then there will be classical versions of popular songs like this year’s Road March DNA by Mical Teja.

Asked if pan as the national instrument will be taught in schools, Mitchell said pan was already in schools and this was evident by Junior Panorama. He added that event even rivalled the well-attended Panorama semifinals.

He said the culture ministry has a programme where it goes into communities and creates schools where young people are introduced to the instrument.

There was also a unit dedicated to pan in schools in the Ministry of Education, Mitchell said.

There is the non-governmental organisation Pan In Schools Coordinating Council which helps with the coordination of the National Schools Panorama.

There was a Pan In School classroom project which hired qualified tutors to teach pan. However, this was discontinued in 2011.