Steel & Pans

Having travelled quite a fair bit for work and performance over the past four years has presented me invaluable opportunities to pick up a wide myriad of different instruments from different cultures and amalgamate them into my performance practice and teaching methods. For example, during my time in Guildhall, SEZENYŪM travelled to Palestine for professional development and creative exchanges with local musicians. There, I fell in love with the darbuka and picked up a bit of playing and technique on that.

More recently, during my stint in Gordonstoun, I was completely enthralled by the bagpipes and picked it up as well. And now, living in the Caribbean, how could I possibly avoid the steel pans! My first foray into arranging for Volpanics has turned out well - we can now crack out a pretty good rendition of Big Spender, which certainly isn't a common tune for steel pans. And riding on that, I have decided to set up a steel pan ensemble for MSS students. However, instead of just focusing on Caribbean classics (and a few indispensible Bob Marley tunes, of course), I will be arranging music less commonly heard on steel pans. What exactly? I'm still mulling over it. But as I'm typing this, Lady Gaga's Born This Way is playing on MFR, and I'm thinking this might be a good one to tackle.

Anyone interested yet? All are welcome!