Young pan player brings ride to Sangre Grande

Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma cham­pi­on in 2019, Guaico Pres­by­ter­ian has added an­oth­er ti­tle to their steel or­ches­tra as Roc­co Cy Dmitri Nicholas, a Stan­dard Four pupil, ex­celled at the re­cent San Fest com­pe­ti­tion and was an­nounced cham­pi­on in the pan so­lo cat­e­go­ry.

Nine-year-old Nicholas, al­so a bud­ding vi­o­lin­ist, said he loves mu­sic and play­ing pan. He said he has a spe­cial touch for mu­sic and hopes to be one of the top pan­men in the land. He added that mu­sic keeps him re­laxed, fo­cused and af­fords him a healthy mind which con­tr­butes to his dis­ci­pline.

“Mu­sic helps me to ex­cel in my aca­d­e­m­ic stud­ies,” said Nicholas. 

“I utilise most of my en­er­gy in mu­sic and, as the say­ing goes, ‘if one does not like mu­sic, bet­ter they dead’. But, I love mu­sic, so I will stay alive.”

Born in Botswana, but raised in San­gre Grande, Nicholas be­came a house­hold name from the age of two, when he won the ti­tle Mr Adorable con­test at his pre-school’s Adorable Care and Ed­u­ca­tion an­nu­al Pageant Show.

At age eight, Nicholas was ad­judged Vale­dic­to­ri­an at Re­pub­lic Bank’s Pan Mi­nors Mu­sic Lit­er­a­cy Pro­gramme. Now, at age nine, he seems un­stop­pable in his mu­si­cal ac­com­plish­ments as he was a tenor play­er in the 2019 Na­tion­al Panora­ma Ju­nior com­pe­ti­tion, con­tribut­ing with his fel­low school­mates to bring the na­tion­al pan ti­tle home for his school and make San­gre Grande and en­vi­rons proud. 

Nicholas’ pri­or steel­pan play­ing ex­pe­ri­ence has en­abled him to ap­pear in this year’s Na­tion­al Ju­nior Fi­nals with both his school and ju­nior Na­tion­al Panora­ma fourth-placed steel­band Su­per­novas Youth Steel Or­ches­tra. Cur­rent­ly, he per­forms as a mem­ber of the Ex­ocubs Youth Steel Or­ches­tra and is al­so prepar­ing to make his se­nior de­but with San­gre Grande Cordettes in the Medi­um Band cat­e­go­ry of the 2020 Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 26, 2020.

The suc­cess of this gift­ed prodi­gy is due to his mu­si­cal train­ing that al­lows him to com­plete Lev­el 2 of the Pan Mu­sic Lit­er­a­cy Pro­gramme, Grade 2 in Mu­sic The­o­ry at the As­so­ciate Board of the Roy­al School of Mu­sic (ABRSM) and Grade 3 in the Steel­pan Prac­ti­cal at the De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts (DC­FA), UWI. In ad­di­tion, he at­tends the Man­nette Acad­e­my of Mu­sic and was re­cent­ly en­rolled at the T&T Youth Phil­har­mon­ic (TTYP) Or­ches­tra at the Be­gin­ner’s Lev­el.

Nicholas told Guardian Me­dia that he was al­ways in­ter­est­ed in steel­pan mu­sic as “the sweet steel rhythms” of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment have al­ways fas­ci­nat­ed him. His moth­er, who was a teacher, drills him at hon­ing pan-play­ing skills, do­ing so un­til he reach­es per­fec­tion. “I loved her for this,” said a beam­ing Nicholas. 

He re­vealed that his first mo­ti­va­tors and those who in­spired him were his moth­er and fa­ther and by ex­ten­sion his sis­ter Syd­ney, who are all in­volved in mu­sic. His sis­ter, who was the first cap­tain of Guaico Pres­by­ter­ian Steel Or­ches­tra, which placed fourth in 2018 Ju­nior Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, en­cour­aged him to join and play the pan.

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By  Ralph Banwarie

Trinidad and Tobago Guardian