PanoGrama 2021 hosted its ‘Knowledge for Success’ webinar series in March as auditions for the show recently wrapped up with preliminaries on the way.
PanoGrama is a virtual steelpan competition which premiered on April 24th 2020, organized by Dominican-born/Trinidadian pannist based in Barbados, Nevin Roach.
Roach’s vision for this platform was to highlight and shed positive light on the pan community during the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The series which was virtually held on zoom was attended by both the public and participants, featuring Head of steelpan studies at Northern Illinois University, Professor Liam Teague, assistant lecturer at Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication (CARIMAC),Steffon Campbell and steelpan veteran, Natasha Joseph.
Intern at PanoGrama Entertainment, Dana Malcolm said in a press release that the Knowledge for Success series was an initiative born out of the team’s mandate to contribute to the holistic personal, musical and professional development of pannists.
She said the series, which concluded on Tuesday, April 6th , was a resounding success.
“It began on March 27th with a Career Guidance session hosted by Professor Liam Teague. Teague stressed the importance [of] ‘versatility ’and ‘substance’ when it came to making a career from steelpan.”
According to the release, Teague has played with over fifteen different international ensembles and served as a judge at some of the most prestigious steelpan competitions worldwide.
Next on the agenda was a Personal Development session hosted by Steffon Campbell who emphasized that musicians should invest in themselves and shared ‘special tricks’ to participants to assist them in this task.
Last was a session on Musical Development conducted by Natasha Joseph.
“[Joseph] brought a wealth of experience to the session, which was geared specifically towards the PanoGrama participants. The participants dissected the criteria with Joseph and learned various musical techniques that could be applied to deliver their best performances for the competition.”
Joseph has a pannist career spanning more than three decades and has led several orchestras in the National Panorama as drillmaster.
Douglas ‘Dougie’ Dallaway who will be representing England in the upcoming PanoGrama, also gave his views on the webinar series, stating that it is a great initiative which will help develop the skills of persons to not only participate in competitions but also go out into the world and represent on a higher level.
PanoGrama is scheduled to begin on May 7th 2021 at 8:00pm AST on PanoGrama Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Thirty contestants will be taking part in the preliminaries.
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