Thundering. Clangoring. The air around me throbs and shatters with the sound of steel pans. I'm in Queen's Park Savannah, a big patch of green in the heart of Port of Spain, capital of the island ...

The steel drum, also called the steel pan or just pan, is surely one of the most unusual and versatile musical instruments in the world. The clangy sound of a steel band performing during carnival in ...

Ellie Mannette, a Trinidadian musician known in the United States as the father of the modern steel drum, died Wednesday at a hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia. He was 90. Ellie Mannette, a ...

Steel pan, born on the island of Trinidad in the late 1930s, began as an outlaw instrument, hammered from milk tins, biscuit boxes, paint cans, brake drums, garbage cans -- and later, the oil barrels ...

If countries had national instruments, then the steelpan would be Trinidad's. In an island nation of just 1.5 million people, there are about 70 steel bands registered to compete in the annual ...

Mickey Mills is a man of steel. Banging on a reconstituted 55-gallon drum is his main gig. But when he wants to communicate with children, he uses a different instrument. “I call ’em canophones,” he ...

On the tropical Caribbean island of Trinidad, 4,300 miles from Edmonds, revelers this week celebrate that raucous festival called Carnival. The two-day, island-wide party will feature elaborate ...

Composer Andy Akiho explains to host Scott Yoo why he loves the steelpan drum. Both then play his piece “Deciduous.” Speaking of found sounds like, I think the roots of this, you know, I'm not a ...

Drummers perform during Carnival in Trinidad. Thundering. Clangoring. The air around me throbs and shatters with the sound of steel pans. I'm in Queen's Park Savannah, a big patch of green in the ...