Golden Hands celebrates 25 yrs tomorrow

GOLDEN Hands Steel Orchestra will be celebrating pure pan excellence at its silver anniversary concert tomorrow.

It is one of the primary events marking the start of a month-long celebration in commemoration of San Fernando achieving city status 30 years ago on November 18, 1988.

The award-winning band and 2018 National Panorama champion in the Small Band category, will pay special tribute to some of its benefactors like Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Ray Holman and Bertrand Kelman. Boogsie is also expected to perform with the Golden Hands choir and Ensemble.

Speaking about the genesis and journey of the band, founder Franka Hills-Headley recalled transforming her living room of her Independence Avenue, San Fernando home, into a pan school, 25 years ago, with the help of Dane Rosco Hinds.

Hinds, her mentor and friend, who was instrumental in the development of Golden Hands, died last month while they were preparing for this celebration.

Still recovering from that loss, Hills-Headley recalled how he taught her to play music and that they both earned their music degrees at the University of the West Indies (UWI).

Hills-Headley said the pioneering student was her then four-year-old child, Vanessa Headley, who went on to top the Caribbean in music when she wrote the exam at CXC level.

She received a scholarship from the Berklee School of Music and recently completed her masters at the UWI. Headley is the vice president and musical director of the band.

A biology teacher, Hills-Headley recalled how she used her bonds–arrears teachers and public servants received after a salary cut under the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) government (1986-1991), to purchase pans.

Pretty soon she hooked up with master pan tuner Bertrand Kellman who advised her on the quality of the instruments required to achieve the vision she had for children to see the possibilities pan possessed.

Looking back at the past 25 years, Hills-Headley is a proud “mother” of the hundreds of students who have passed through her hands.

“Golden Hands is my mother’s second child,” Headley said.

Using her classroom skill to achieve entrepreneurial success, her students who range from three to 30 years, have not only won awards in competitions, but have achieved success at the CSEC and CAPE level examinations and have gone on to pursue tertiary education at universities here and abroad.

“Vanessa is the model that I am building on. We have seriously gifted children here. Last year close to 30 of them wrote the music exams and all achieved distinctions.”

Hills-Headley who has established a scholarship programme, called on the public to help sponsor a child to achieve pan superiority.

She said she is still overwhelmed by the band’s accomplishment over the years.

Each time she thinks she no longer possesses the energy to continue she is buoyed by another achievement which gives her the impetus, she said. Like this year when Golden Hands achieved Panorama victory with Trouble which was composed, vocalised and arranged by her daughter, and also the band’s haul of 18 trophies at Music Festival earlier this year. “It is a work of love. It is my calling. I see the possibilities for these children to earn a living through it. On reflection, I think it was the right decision to invest in the pan and we are now earning the rewards.”