When Kirsten Michener heard the steelpan being played for the first time in California, US, she immediately felt an affinity to the instrument. Now, 28 years later, she is living her dream, playing the tenor pan with Hadco Phase II Pan Groove for Panorama, and for her musical hero, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe.
She said she learned to play the piano as a young girl and as a teenager so music had always been part of her life. She learned the basics of other instruments during her other tours of service over the years, but had never felt a connection with the instruments or the music.
“I can’t tell you what it is about the pan that strikes me to my soul. It is a beautiful and versatile instrument. To hear people who are good at it, it’s an outstanding once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“I don’t feel that connection to any other instrument or genre of music. Certainly I have a love of the piano and have played it but I don’t get emotional about it, Bach, Beethoven or Pachelbel's (Canon) or any of the greats that I’ve attempted to play.”
[caption id="attachment_1000804" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Kirsten Michener, first in back row, with members of the San Rafael Pan Quakes and Len “Boogsie” Sharpe (centre, middle row), in San Rafael, California in April 1997. Photo courtesy Kirsten Michener. -[/caption]
The public affairs officer with the US Embassy was first introduced to the steel pan in 1995. While at their San Rafael, California home, she and her mother, Dee Michener, saw a TV ad for a steelpan concert at a nearby college.
They attended the concert and were “enthralled” by the sound, so they approached the concert’s organisers and learned that the local middle school in their area had a pan programme which was open to adults. There, once a week, they learned to play specific songs on the pan.
In 1997, the teacher got a grant to bring in a pan artist. The students learned some of the artist’s songs and they had a concert, along with the artist who turned out to be Boogsie, who, since then, she has held in high regard.
“So in 1997 in April, I played Musical Wine in concert with Dr Len “Boogsie” Sharpe on the high school auditorium stage!”
[caption id="attachment_1000801" align="alignnone" width="1024"] US Embassy public affairs officer Kirsten Michener loves Trinbago culture and steelpan music. - ROGER JACOB[/caption]
Since then, it had been her dream to learn pan in a pan yard in Trinidad and Tobago with the people who invented the instrument.
By that time, she had started to work with the US State Department and had to move to the Republic of Kosovo, where she stayed from 1997 to 2003. That year, she returned to San Rafael, pregnant and raring to start playing again. So she immediately rejoined the class and played with the San Rafael Pan Quakes from 2003 to 2009 until she had to go abroad to serve once again.
For ten years she served in different parts of the former Soviet Union but returned to the US and served in Washington DC from 2019 to 2021.
She explained that, in the State Department,
