Press Release:
GO ART! is excited to host the Western New York Steel Band Festival on Saturday afternoon, April 15 at the Batavia City Centre. Organized by teaching artist and percussionist, Ted Canning, the event welcomes everyone to come enjoy steel pan bands performing on this instrument developed in Trinidad and Tobago. Admission is a $5 suggested donation, and
ample parking is available at the City Centre.The event begins at 2 p.m. with a pre-concert presentation, Pan in Trinidad, with longtime Rochester pan player and band leader, Alfred St. John. Alfred was born and raised in Trinidad and experienced the first several decades of the instrument’s growth there in the 1940’s-60’s. The program continues with a concert at 3:00 pm, featuring the Lancaster High School Carnival Kids Steel Orchestra, Rochester Institute of Technology’s Tiger Steel, and the Steel Alchemy Community Steelband.
The concert will conclude on a high note with joint performance of all the bands together. Carnival Kids Steel Orchestra was started by John Marone in 1974, and is the third oldest established continuing steel drum program in the United States. The group performs numerous concerts and events annually in the greater Buffalo area, has produced several recordings, and has traveled from Philadelphia, Chicago, Disney World and Trinidad. The RIT Tiger Steel band is newly formed over the past year, offered as a class in a campuswide initiative to enhance the experience of arts for all students.
They have represented the university at events off campus and were featured in the 2022 holiday video card for the university. Steel Alchemy was formed in 2001 as a community- based band, open to anyone ages 13 and older. With an emphasis on intergenerational group learning, the band performs at town festivals, concert series and private events throughout the Genesee Valley. Steel Alchemy and Tiger Steel are directed by Ted Canning.
“I’m really excited to bring this festival to Batavia, in what I hope will be an annual event,” says Canning. “It might be surprising for people to learn that our part of the state has a significant Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council WNY Steelband Festival Release
connection to the Trinidadian steel band tradition and its founders, from the groups featured at the
festival as well as Paul Ferrette’s Caribbean Extravaganza in Buffalo, Al St. John’s Trinidad and Tobago
Steel band in Rochester, and a history of school bands in Rochester, Randolph, Ithaca, Naples, and
Dundee. I have wanted to bring our groups together for a long time, and to share this music with our
community—it will be a great time!”The Western New York Steel Band Festival is being presented as part of the activities of
GLOW Creatives, a group of 10 artists (including Canning) at GO ART! who received a grant from
the Creatives Rebuild New York Artist Employment Program, supported by the Mellon Foundation.
GO ART! programming is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the
support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.The event is at Seymour Place, 201 East Main St., Batavia, New York, 14020-2205. For more information, call 585-343-9313. email info@goart.org or go to www.goart.org
Photo submitted from online source.
