Beautiful pan music,but much time wasted

THE EDITOR: On the evening of August 24, my wife and I attended Steelpan is More Beautiful, the classical pan finals at the Jean Pierre Complex, Port of Spain, presented by Pan Trinbago.

Let me say emphatically at the outset that the quality of the pan music was exquisite. We were treated to a variety of harmonious sounds, from soft, tender interludes to powerful, intense climaxes. The amount of practice that must have gone into producing those melodious mixtures must have been immense and, as always when hearing such incredible sounds, I was in disbelief that this instrument is our very own invention. That is sensational!

I wish that was all I have to say. However, this wonderful evening was partially spoilt by some senseless and unnecessary occurrences, as follows:

The show began almost three-quarters of an hour late. Why? We’ll never know; no one said a word.

It started with the national anthem. No problem, but then there was a rather lengthy prayer. Why? I’ve attended shows/concerts in several countries and never did any begin with a prayer. OK, let’s say it’s a Trinidad thing. But this made the show start even later.

Then we had two lengthy speeches. Why? A short welcome address would have sufficed. So, by now we’re really late and we hadn’t yet heard a single pan note.

Then the MC had to give the audience a too-long introduction to each band before it performed, when a short overview of the piece it was about to play would have been perfect. More time wasted.

At last the show started and the first band performed. It were great. But after its performance, and after every other band’s subsequent performance, there was a break of about 20 minutes to enable the judges to tabulate their scores.

During this time the audience was blasted with music through the loud-speaker system. And mind you, this was a mature audience, as you would expect at a classical pan concert, so music at that level was uncalled for. I even wondered how the judges could possibly concentrate on their important work.

During the evening, bands came on, played and went off, and truly the music was beautiful. But because of all the la di da, the show dragged slowly on and when at 11 pm they announced what amounted to a second intermission, I said to my wife, “Na, let’s bus it.” At that point at least half of the audience decided to leave too and people left in droves.

Still, four of the ten bands had not yet performed, so after the intermission those bands had to perform in front of a much smaller audience. That in itself is a shame because it is short-changing both the paying audience and, perhaps more importantly, the bands which, as I said, must have done an immense amount of work to reach the finals. And all of this because the programme started late and far too much time was unnecessarily wasted.

Pan Trinbago, you need to reformat your presentations. Cut out the nonsense and give the audience what they paid to hear: exquisite classical pan music as only we can produce in TT.

JOHN BAXTER

Diego Martin

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