SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

For 55 years, Pan Trin­ba­go has stood at the heart of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s steel­band move­ment, help­ing to pre­serve, pro­mote and ad­vance the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. As the or­gan­i­sa­tion cel­e­brates its 55th an­niver­sary in 2026, it is re­flect­ing on a lega­cy built on re­silience, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty and the work of those who laid the foun­da­tions for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Ac­cord­ing to the an­niver­sary reg­istry, the num­ber 55 sym­bol­is­es love, loy­al­ty, wis­dom, pa­tience and emo­tion­al bal­ance, qual­i­ties that Pan Trin­ba­go (PT) says it em­braces whole­heart­ed­ly.

The mile­stone comes as the or­gan­i­sa­tion con­tin­ues to nav­i­gate the chal­lenges of an evolv­ing cul­tur­al land­scape while work­ing to mod­ernise its op­er­a­tions and strength­en the steel­pan move­ment.

PT is the of­fi­cial cor­po­rate, cul­tur­al and ad­min­is­tra­tive body for the steel­band move­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T).

While the cal­en­dar year runs from Jan­u­ary to De­cem­ber, PT’s steel­pan year spans Oc­to­ber/No­vem­ber to Sep­tem­ber the next year. With­in that pe­ri­od falls the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s ma­jor na­tion­al event, Panora­ma, which runs from Oc­to­ber/No­vem­ber to Feb­ru­ary, March or April, de­pend­ing on when Car­ni­val falls.

“There is no sea­son for pan,” em­pha­sis­es PT pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore. “Pan is year-round.”

Lay­ing the foun­da­tions

The steel­band move­ment be­gan in 1949, and four bod­ies have been reg­is­tered over the years: the Trinidad Steel­band As­so­ci­a­tion (1949); the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Steel­bands­men, the first for­mal or of­fi­cial body (1950); the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Steel­bands (1963); and Pan Trin­ba­go (1971), which was in­cor­po­rat­ed by an Act of Par­lia­ment in 1986. How­ev­er, of­fi­cial pro­ceed­ings be­gan in 1951.

While every pres­i­dent has played a vi­tal and sig­nif­i­cant role in the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s de­vel­op­ment, Syd­ney Gol­lop, George “Son­ny” God­dard and Ram­sey-Moore stand out as his­to­ry mak­ers.

Gol­lop was the in­au­gur­al pres­i­dent, serv­ing from 1950 to 1956. He laid the foun­da­tion stone in 1951 to com­mem­o­rate the first of­fi­cial meet­ing of steel­bands­men.

God­dard, the third pres­i­dent, served the most terms, hold­ing of­fice from 1957 to 1959, 1962 to 1971 and 1978 to 1979. It was un­der his watch that Panora­ma be­gan.

Ram­sey-Moore, the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s first and on­ly fe­male pres­i­dent so far, served from 2018 to 2024 and has con­tin­ued in the role from 2024 to the present, ad­vanc­ing and mod­ernising the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The Gol­lop and God­dard fam­i­lies told WE Life and Cul­ture they were proud that their grand­fa­thers had laid such strong foun­da­tions. They al­so shared what they de­scribed as “an amaz­ing” love sto­ry.

Gol­lop’s grand­son Der­rick and God­dard’s grand­daugh­ter Leslie-Ann mar­ried each oth­er, ini­tial­ly un­aware that they were both re­lat­ed to the for­mer pres­i­dents.

Gol­lop’s grand­sons, in­clud­ing Richard and Ron­nie, said they were plan­ning big things to help keep their grand­fa­ther’s lega­cy alive. They al­so felt ho­n­oured that Ram­sey-Moore had au­tho­rised them this year to per­son­alise a sec­tion of the North Stands dur­ing Sa­van­nah Par­ty with a Syd­ney Gol­lop ban­ner.

God­dard’s wife, Mona, af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as Bun­ny, is a spright­ly 91-year-old who al­so re­flect­ed on her own jour­ney and her late hus­band’s con­tri­bu­tion to the move­ment.

“First, I’m a 17-year-stage-four breast-can­cer sur­vivor, so this is a spe­cial month for me,” she said.

e con­tin­ued: “The ear­ly pres­i­dents loved what they did with­out be­ing paid. Son­ny had big plans. He worked hard with lim­it­ed re­sources. He was very bal­anced and head­strong. When he was wrong, he some­times ad­mit­ted it, but when he knew he was right, he de­fend­ed it vo­cif­er­ous­ly. I felt even more proud when a fe­male pres­i­dent was elect­ed. I’m sure Son­ny’s hap­py.”

Un­earthing hid­den his­to­ry

Over the years, Pan Trin­ba­go has al­so drawn at­ten­tion to less­er-known as­pects of the steel­pan move­ment’s his­to­ry, in­clud­ing the ori­gin of its own name.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion iden­ti­fies Mar­jorie Wood­ing (1923-2013) as the cre­ator of PT’s name. Wood­ing was a pi­o­neer­ing mu­si­cian, mu­sic teacher, arranger and Panora­ma ad­ju­di­ca­tor. She was al­so the first woman to write for a steel or­ches­tra, Sil­ver­tones, for Panora­ma in 1967, and the founder of San­do Or­gan­ites Steel Or­ches­tra.

This year al­so marks 75 years since Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first steel­band, TASPO, trav­elled over­seas. The or­ches­tra made its de­but at the Unit­ed King­dom’s Fes­ti­val of Britain in 1951.

In ho­n­our of Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month in Oc­to­ber and the lega­cy of the late Mighty Spar­row (1935-2026), PT re­vealed the top-three Panora­ma fi­nal­ist steel­bands, from the first com­pe­ti­tion in 1963 to this year’s event, that played Spar­row’s tunes.

The first-place fi­nal­ists were North Stars, Des­per­a­does and Katzen­jam­mers.

The sec­ond-place fi­nal­ists were Sun­down­ers, Des­per­a­does, Star­lift, Cav­a­liers, Tokyo, Trinidad All Stars and Rene­gades (2026).

The third-place fi­nal­ists were Star­lift, West Side Sym­pho­ny (Sun Jets), Hi­lan­ders (cur­rent­ly High­landers), Tripoli, Har­monites and Pan­de­mo­ni­um.

Build­ing mod­ern-day mile­stones

PT’s more re­cent achieve­ments in­clude the in­tro­duc­tion of its Youth Gala and Awards Cer­e­mo­ny and the of­fi­cial de­c­la­ra­tion of World Steel­pan Day in 2023.

In 2024, steel­pan was des­ig­nat­ed T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment. That year al­so saw the first World Steel­pan Con­fer­ence held in T&T and the in­stru­ment of­fi­cial­ly re­ceiv­ing Ge­o­graph­i­cal In­di­ca­tion (GI) sta­tus.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion’s mile­stones for 2026 in­clude the first Youth Steel­pan Fu­sion Fest, the Black-Tie Launch of Steel­pan Month/Au­gust Fest, the in­stal­la­tion of the in­au­gur­al T&T Steel­band GI Board and the es­tab­lish­ment of an 11-part Steel­pan Ecosys­tem.

Steel­bands as en­gines

of so­cial change

Be­yond mu­sic and com­pe­ti­tion, PT high­lights the wider so­cial and eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tion of steel­bands to com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion says: “Steel­bands act as so­cial en­gines that pro­duc­tive­ly strength­en com­mu­ni­ties in last­ing and mea­sur­able ways: youth de­vel­op­ment and pos­i­tive en­gage­ment, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty and her­itage preser­va­tion, crime re­duc­tion and so­cial sta­bil­i­ty, eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties, ed­u­ca­tion and cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits, com­mu­ni­ty co­he­sion and so­cial in­clu­sion, plat­form for ex­pres­sion and in­no­va­tion, and glob­al recog­ni­tion and diplo­ma­cy.”

For Ram­sey-Moore, the con­nec­tion be­tween mu­sic, iden­ti­ty and re­silience re­mains cen­tral to the move­ment’s fu­ture.

Speak­ing at the launch of Steel­pan Month 2026, she said: “Rhythm is iden­ti­ty. It tells us who we are, where we come from, and what we are ca­pa­ble of be­com­ing. Cul­ture is our col­lec­tive heart­beat. It lives in the sto­ries of our an­ces­tors, the art we cre­ate, the food we share, the tra­di­tions we pre­serve, and the val­ues we pass from one gen­er­a­tion to the next. For gen­er­a­tions, our cul­ture has been our great­est source of re­silience. It has car­ried us through hard­ship. It has in­spired in­no­va­tion. It has unit­ed com­mu­ni­ties. It’s the lan­guage that con­nects us long be­fore words are spo­ken. When we re­main con­nect­ed to our cul­tur­al rhythm, we re­main con­nect­ed to our roots, our pur­pose, and our fu­ture.”

A new steel­pan year

Pan’s New Year 2026-2027 be­gan on Oc­to­ber 18 with the launch of PT’s 64th Panora­ma, ti­tled Bring Yuh En­er­gy. Match D Rhythm, at the Des­per­a­does Pa­n­yard.

As it closed its old year and wel­comed the new one, Pan Trin­ba­go shared a mo­ti­va­tion­al mes­sage that re­flect­ed the spir­it of re­new­al: “Every sun­rise is a fresh start, a new be­gin­ning, and a clean slate af­ter the dark­ness of night.”