PanWest Caribbean Steelpan Music Center

 

This is our proposed headquarters for the new Caribbean Steelpan Music Center. It is located at 10855 San Pablo Ave in El Cerrito. We have an agreement in principle with the owners of the building. The details will be ironed out soon and we plan to begin classes in August. We will be releasing more information on the program and classes as we progress. Thanks for the great show of support!

Bellstars in action

Bellstars New Pete Engelhart creation

Bellstars

Configured by Harry Best

Designed and created by Pete Englehart

2012©

• Fully Chromatic – C#
• Wholetone inverted images on each side
• Geometrical symmetry
• Played with hands or rubber tipped mallets
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Pete Engelhart

Pete Engelhart began crafting metal percussion instruments after spending time in Brazil in the 1950's. He combined his life long love of jazz, knowledge of Latin rhythms and sounds, and his ability as an artist to produce complicated resonant tuned bells.
Pete has now been handcrafting metal percussion for nearly 43 years. He has designed a large variety of highly creative instruments that are now used worldwide by many professional musicians.
This current line of 9 instruments has been designed to fill the basic needs of the working drummer / percussionist. It represents the essential toolkit for the modern drummer. The metal instruments are all hand made with care by Pete Engelhart. The bells are made of heavy gauge metal and are individually tuned.

Harry Best

Harry Best is a professional steelpan player and innovator and enjoys exploring the correspondences between music and geometry especially as it relates to the steelpan.

This configuration was inspired by the Ellie Manette standard pattern for the double second steelpans. The right side of the Bellstars is an exact image of the right side of the Manette double seconds. Harry simply created an inverted symmetry on the left side.

Guppy lead for sale

 

Former Bay Area panman Fitzroy Balfour, now residing in Seattle has a Guppy Brown lead for sale. Built in 1996, the pan was recently tuned by Ancil Joseph in Arizona. Fitzroy is asking $700 for the pan. He can be reached at 425 -773 -6488.

Mr. FixIt readies pan float for T&T Steel at SF Carnaval

 

Carlyle, Mr. Fixit! the hardest working man in the Bay Area built the float in the eastbay, towed it to SF at 5am, made all the secure adjustments then joined the rhythm section for a hot jam down the road.

Dexter Bruce of Shabang solos on Samba de Orfeo

Pan on the road in SF Carnaval

 

Sharon Baird and LaMantia on the Trinidad and Tobago Our Boys Steel Orchestra float in the San Francisco Carnival Memorial Day weekend.

Pan rep at Black History Celebration

 
PanWoman Sharon Baird and Harry Best share a moment with Rev. Richard A. Roberts of the San Francisco Community Fellowship at a Black History celebration in Daly City.