Rough photos by tojo the Night Spectator at the Music Festival
© Islands Research Ltd
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| EVENTS 2000 | |
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| Rough View 2 Rough photos by tojo the Night Spectator at the Music Festival © Islands Research Ltd |
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THE FINAL NIGHT |
| Steel Pan Lovers
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Steel Pan Lovers Finland - Europe Karjaa Led by Ari Viitanen Starting in their waste-coats, the band played a melodious Finlandia composed by their late countryman Johan Julius Jean Sibelius (1865 - 1957), as arranged by Ari Viitanen. The performance was delightfully light and loose and had a most pleasing tone now characteristic to the instruments of this band, most of which were made by Ari Viitanen himself. The performance was played with reference to musical scores scanned by the band members. |
| One of the gems of this WSMF 2000, Steel Pan Lovers were the smallest of the Orchestra section with 26 members including their erstwhile leader Ari Viitanen. This group of young Finnish teenagers, musicians all, so much impressed the spectators in the East stand, that they received the most enthusiastic applause for any band on this finals night. |
| Waste-coats aside, an informality to the proceedings pleasingly introduced by PANch 2000 earlier in the preliminaries, Steel Pan Lovers now let loose on Ari Viitanen’s arrangement of Aldwyn Roberts the late Lord Kitchener’s Pan in A Minor. |
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| Played with an enthusiasm and verve which equalled anything we could do here in T&T, and with added character totally their own, Steel Pan Lovers presented and pranced to an arrangement of staggering complexity that would have marked Ari Viitanen a serious Panorama contender had he been a resident of T&T. Steel Pan Lovers placed 8th in this competition. Lacking perhaps only in numbers to raise the volume, despite an exceedingly full sound nevertheless; and having intentionally made sacrifice to complexity of arrangement - that appeared to change and grow with each performance, an ability enhanced through playing from a score-sheet - and this was a sacrifice to the time available to practice, and one that may have diluted the ability of the players in this instance only, to display a tightness in performance sought after by the judges. Steel Pan Lovers presentations will however, long be remembered; and their abilities set a shining, distinct and endearing model for The Future of Pan, world-wide. |
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| © 2000: tobagojo@trinidad.net - 20001028 Last Update: 30 October 2000 17:00:00 Processed by: Jeremy G de Barry |
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