US professor teaches pan

Friday, October 6, 2000
By Terry Joseph

BORN, schooled and raised in the United States, Professor Jeannine Remy is in Trinidad and Tobago to teach pan to locals.

“It’s actually kind of ironic that an American should be in Trinidad teaching pan, but I hope that the people here are pleasantly surprised at how we have respectfully utilised the instrument,” she said.

“I get a sense that the people here do not recognise it. I wish Trinis would understand what they have. Pan is truly beautiful and this festival has very positive vibes. It would really be nice if more Trinis come out and support their own art form,” she said.

Remy has also been retained as musical director of the BWIA Invaders Steel Orchestra for the World Steelband Music Festival, which opens here next week. It is not the first time that she has taken the Woodbrook band to the festival.

Len “Boogsie” Sharpe is handling the band’s calypso performance, while Remy will direct players through the test-piece (“Dawn of the Millennium” by Rudy Wells) and Anton Dvorak’s “Carnival Overture”.

Describing her mission as a special challenge, Remy said: “Adapting an original score for a steel orchestra requires the musical director to make it sound like a steelband version as far as possible, without being unfaithful to the score.”

Remy, who has been playing the piano since age four, received her doctorate at the University of Arizona and is now a music professor at the Idaho State University, where she started a pan programme.

She has been playing pan since 1983, has published a number of papers on the steelband and attended every Carnival since 1989.

She is here on a Fulbright grant to do research and teach pan.

“I don’t consider myself an American in a sense,” she said. “I am married to a Trini and in any event, when you line up in the panyard, other players do not look at you strangely because you are from another place.”

In local panyards, she said, it all comes down to whether or not you can play the instrument.

“That’s part of the beauty of the pan culture,” she said.

At the Idaho University, Remy developed a steelband which has worked with Disneyland in California.

“Actually, I think Trinis will be very surprised when the foreign bands begin to play. These people take the music seriously,” she said.

While she was at school in Northern Illinois University, she said pan was held in high regard.

“Many of the foreign bands have been ready since July and were simply going over the completed work, while some of the orchestras here were still learning their pieces.

Despite this attitude, working with Trinidadian panmen has always impressed Remy.

“There are some very special things operating here,” she said, “I have always been impressed by how quickly the players learn the songs and how good their memories are.

“Americans are more of a visual society. The average American makes no attempt to remember your telephone number. They will write it down. A Trini does exactly the opposite.”

She still has high hopes for her band.

“I certainly want Invaders to win. We have come second twice, but we do not plan to settle for that this time.”

Remy wants to win for sentimental reasons.

“With Ellie Mannette coming and getting an honorary doctorate, it would be awful if we were sitting in the stand on final night with him.

“We are trying our darndest to pull it off and the band is certainly sounding good. I wish it is ‘Invaders year’. I really think its time.”

Asked what to expect on the night, Remy said:

“I’ve been in the panyard every night, so I have not heard other bands. There has been a lot of work to do.

“I certainly hope that people will come out and support the festival in the way they do Panorama, because working for the festival is at least three times harder than the job you are required to do for Panorama.

“This festival will mark where pan has really reached and I think that as many Trinis as is possible should come out to share in the discovery.”

The End