Kirsten Michener lives her dream in Phase II panyard

When Kirsten Michener heard the steelpan being played for the first time in California, US, she immediately felt an affinity to the instrument. Now, 28 years later, she is living her dream, playing the tenor pan with Hadco Phase II Pan Groove for Panorama, and for her musical hero, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe.

She said she learned to play the piano as a young girl and as a teenager so music had always been part of her life. She learned the basics of other instruments during her other tours of service over the years, but had never felt a connection with the instruments or the music.

“I can’t tell you what it is about the pan that strikes me to my soul. It is a beautiful and versatile instrument. To hear people who are good at it, it’s an outstanding once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“I don’t feel that connection to any other instrument or genre of music. Certainly I have a love of the piano and have played it but I don’t get emotional about it, Bach, Beethoven or Pachelbel's (Canon) or any of the greats that I’ve attempted to play.”

The public affairs officer with the US Embassy was first introduced to the steel pan in 1995. While at their San Rafael, California home, she and her mother, Dee Michener, saw a TV ad for a steelpan concert at a nearby college.

They attended the concert and were “enthralled” by the sound, so they approached the concert’s organisers and learned that the local middle school in their area had a pan programme which was open to adults. There, once a week, they learned to play specific songs on the pan.

In 1997, the teacher got a grant to bring in a pan artist. The students learned some of the artist’s songs and they had a concert, along with the artist who turned out to be Boogsie, who, since then, she has held in high regard.

“So in 1997 in April, I played Musical Wine in concert with Dr Len “Boogsie” Sharpe on the high school auditorium stage!”

Since then, it had been her dream to learn pan in a pan yard in Trinidad and Tobago with the people who invented the instrument.

By that time, she had started to work with the US State Department and had to move to the Republic of Kosovo, where she stayed from 1997 to 2003. That year, she returned to San Rafael, pregnant and raring to start playing again. So she immediately rejoined the class and played with the San Rafael Pan Quakes from 2003 to 2009 until she had to go abroad to serve once again.

For ten years she served in different parts of the former Soviet Union but returned to the US and served in Washington DC from 2019 to 2021.

She explained that, in the State Department, employees had to apply for positions through a bidding process so they rarely knew where they would serve after their current tour.

In the latter half of 2020, she was going through the bidding process, applying for positions all over the world, except for the western hemisphere because she did not speak Spanish, but she was not finding anything, leading to months of frustration and disappointment.

“One day I was standing in my kitchen in Virginia and said out loud, ‘I’m dying to serve in Trinidad.’ I don’t know where that came from because I wasn’t thinking about TT, listening to soca, it wasn’t in the news. It just came from somewhere in my mind.”

But Port of Spain was not on the list since the public affairs officer serving in TT at the time was supposed to stay until 2023.

“Two weeks after those words came out of my mouth, the incumbent got a call from the White House to work on the National Security Council in the press job. So suddenly, TT was on the list.”

In January 2021, she interviewed for the position. She told the interviewer not only was she highly qualified but, while she had never been to TT, she had a great love for its people through its culture, and the steelpan in particular.

She got the job.

“I’m a spiritual person but I’m not a religions person, but somehow that opened the path for me to come here. So when I say I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, I mean that in a very spiritual sense.

“I don’t play pan because it’s good for my career. I play pan because it’s good for my soul, and it’s good for my life. And it is the realisation of a dream. And I get emotional every time I say that because I feel like I won the lottery.”

When she got the position, she called her old teacher whose husband was a Trinidadian pan maker. He called Boogsie to let him know she was coming to TT and Boogsie related that he was excited to meet her again and invited her to the Phase II panyard on Hamilton St, Port of Spain.

Michener arrived in TT in June 2021 and, that very week, Boogsie called her to say he had arranged for tenor player D’Arcy King to teach her. As soon as she got out of quarantine she visited the yard and made arrangements for lessons on Saturdays.

During that first lesson, Boogsie joined her as she was playing the scales, making her feel like the luckiest person in the world. For the last 20 months, she has attended her lessons almost every Saturday morning and she still gets emotional about her warm welcome.

“Just that kind of warmth and graciousness and generosity is what he and the whole band has shown me from day one... It’s like Yo-Yo Ma gave me a lesson on the cello! How did I get so lucky to be here, and to be in this pan yard, and for him to have the time and grace and generosity to show me the basics of this instrument that he has clearly redefined?”

Then, in October 2021, Boogsie invited her to join stage side.

“They teach me, they lift me up, they let me shadow them. I swear, every time I come in the yard Boogsie says, ‘Hello sister! This is your home.’

“I’ve been in foreign service agencies for 25 years. This is my sixth overseas tour. Other Americans have said this too about Trinbagonians, but this is really the first tour where I truly have national friends outside of work. And the pan yard genuinely is my second home.”

She told WMN Phase II had been practising for Panorama since January 3 and it was “intense.” She was there every night except for nights she had to work and even took the week before Panorama finals off from work so she could stay late to practice.

She said she was the weakest player in Phase II. The band members had nothing to gain by helping her but they did. Having so much respect and appreciation for them all, she worked very hard. She had been invited to events, fetes, and limes but she said “no” to everything because she wanted to be in the pan yard practising as she was committed to having the experience.

“When your dream is in front of you, you just have to show up and be grateful for it...I’m giving it everything. It’s a short period of time so I’m putting it all in. It’s exhausting but I’m all in because this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Michener played with Phase II in the semis on February 5 at the Queen’s Park Savannah. The band placed third with the song We Come Out to Party by Aaron Duncan. She described the experience as incredible, exhilarating and humbling, and she felt as if everyone in the country was there.

“I think that speaks to the Trinbagonian culture – how warm and open the people are as opposed to many of the countries of the former soviet union – but also the similarities we have between American culture and Trinbagonian culture and the strong ties that we have.

“The warmth and the open of the people and my band mates is just a huge gift to me. Why would I ever want to serve anywhere else? Where could I go after this?”

And so, while a tour is usually three years, Michener has applied to get her stay in TT extended to five.