The Love City Pan Dragons, St. John’s leading steel band, is back on island after teaming up with a steel band in Maryland and winning first place in their category at the Virginia International PANFest earlier in May.
Their success at the Virginia Beach competition shows the value of having a role model you can relate to. This year, St. John’s own Ronald Lee Jr., now a professional musician and Love City Pan Dragons board president, has been arranging music and assisting Pan Dragons’ longtime artistic director, Ikema Dyer.
Lee joined the Pan Dragons as a seven-year-old. “I literally begged my mother to let me join. I was in love with their sound,” he told the Source in 2018.
At that point, he was heading off to George Mason University in Virginia to study music with jazz pan player Victor Provost. (Provost, who is on the faculty there, also grew up on St. John.)
While in the States, Lee started working with CAFE, the Cultural Academy for Excellence’s community-based steel band. This year, while he was back on St. John, he decided to build on that relationship and combine the two groups to compete in the festival.
Pan Dragons’ Executive Director Andrea Milam loved the idea. It fit in with her goal for the group to travel internationally every year. (Last year, the Pan Dragons traveled to Antigua during their carnival to perform with Ikema Dyer’s old band.)
For band members, there’s definitely an interest in traveling, “especially when you fall in with a great group,” Milam said. When Pan Dragons players joined with members of CAFE’s band, the 40-plus performers combined for a mighty sound and a “superior” rating among 20 competitors.
Young Pan Dragons members say they, too, were influenced by watching older kids perform with the band. Naudy Castillo, age 10, joined the band two years ago. “I was just following my sister because I look up to her,” he said. (Gleidy Castillo Caraballo, is 17 and a tenor pan player.)
At first, Naudy said he used to just “kind of watch, but now I like it. It’s my happy place.” He enjoys how much the band has improved over the past couple years. “The whole band is sounding better,” he said.
Seamus O’Donnell, 17, now a section leader, became a member seven years ago. “I always saw them playing out and it looked like fun,” he said. Joining the Pan Dragons “has made me more well-rounded, and it’s taught me leadership. I’ve learned how to teach others,” he added.
Milam said for the most part, the members don’t read music but learn to play through repetition. “The notes get into their muscle memory,” she said. It turns out, however, that not all steel pans are alike. The Pan Dragons used CAFE’s pans while they were in Virginia, and St. John players were surprised to find the notes were laid out differently on these instruments.
The St. John players had to push beyond their muscle memory to learn the notes for the competition, she said, and with intensive practice, they succeeded.
The Pan Dragons got their start back in the mid-1990s as a crime-prevention program called the Ghost Riders Steel Orchestra. In 1998, the name changed to Love City Pan Dragons, and since then, the group has issued several CDs featuring their music.
They’re now getting ready for St. John Festival. Pan-o-Rama is scheduled to take place in Carnival Village in Cruz Bay on Saturday, June 28.
Starting in the fall, the Pan Dragons will be welcoming new members ages nine to 79 and beyond. “We have a lot of 11th graders who will be leaving the band after next year,” said Milam; her son Dax Chouiniere is one of them. “We’re looking for the next generation; they don’t need any prior skill or knowledge, just interest.”
The band practices every Friday afternoon at the pan yard near the Cruz Bay Parks and Rec. Center from 3 to 6 p.m., and on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m.
Like most directors of 501c3 arts nonprofits, Milam is concerned about cuts in funding for the upcoming year and is looking for sponsorships and donations. “We have big dreams, and that means big funding,” she said.
Donations can be made through Venmo@Lovecitypandragons; through PayPal at Lovecitypandragons@gmail.com; and by check made out to Love City Pan Dragons and mailed to PO Box 1537, St. John, VI 00831.
For further information, contact Milam at 340-690-2420.
