Teacher inspires band of steel (From Watford Observer)

Teacher inspires band of steel

4:42pm Thursday 15th December 2005 in

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MUSICIANS from Bushey Meads School have been presented with special awards for their outstanding achievement and exemplary work in the community.

Members of the school's senior steel pan band have received the newly instated Michael Toussaint Award for Steel Pan Skills and Service to the Community.

The students have learned to play the steel pans from scratch and during the past two years have conducted workshops for other students and have gone out into the community to perform and share their skills.

Their achievements are all the more remarkable because their teacher, Michael Toussaint, is blind.

He is the only blind tenor pannist in the world.

When he was fully sighted he was a professional player, then following eye surgery in Trinidad which went wrong, he gradually lost his eyesight.

With friends' encouragement he learned how to play again, using his memory of a clock face to do so.

Mr Toussaint tutors every Tuesday and Wednesday at the school and will be playing with the band on Wednesday evening, in the school's Christmas concert.

A constant inspiration to his pupils, 1970's star Billy Ocean is among his personal friends and along with his workshops, he gives a fascinating account of the history of steel panning.

The students, who were presented with their awards by Mr Toussaint and headteacher Dr Dena Coleman, were: Jaina Patel, Moji Oshisanya, Lindsay Millar, Juliet Luff, Steven Haley, Hannah O'Leary, Lisa Daborn, Sarah Nepomuceno and Alice Gumbs.

Mr Toussaint wanted to officially recognise the band's work and the school agreed.

Bushey Meads School is so impressed with the work of the steel pan band that Dr Coleman has even learned how to play herself and colleagues say she has a "natural talent".

Because of her training, she said she knows just how hard the students have worked to become as proficient as they are.

Following the school's recent Awards for All Lottery funding, it is able to develop and expand the band to include a junior section. Mr Toussaint explained: "These new steel pan students will have something to work towards and aspire to."