Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Heritage Toronto Bangs The Drum Slowly For Caribbean Canadians   By  STEPHEN WEIR   The voices and pictures of the heroes of Toronto’s steel band community has come to the Internet.  Earlier this year Heritage Toronto posted an audio and  written  experience that   explores the contributions and importance of the steelpan to Toronto's music and Caribbean community through the first-hand accounts of four leading steelpan artists.   Andre Rouse, Earl LaPierre Jr, Thadel Wilson and Wendy Jones are the stars of this online history that has recently been made by Heritage Toronto. It is posted on their popular website under the title of  Timbre from Trinidad to Toronto. Heritage Toronto is an agency of the city that celebrates the heritage and the diverse stories of its people, places, and events here in Toronto. This high-profile department tells the city’s story through a number of popular programs, including tours, plaqu...

  Exhibition closes with a bang on a steelpan d rum Stephen Weir Monday. Just an hour before the CNE gates shut for the last time this year, Wendy Jones stood on the fair’s International Stage and asked an audience how they are all feeling.  A crowd of 1,000 pan enthusiasts shouted back long and loud. “Hot. Hot. Hot!” Wendy Jones and the Pan Fantasy Steelband and responded in kind.  A rousing stripped down rendition of the Merryman’s  Feeling Hot Hot Hot closed out their one-hour performance in Enwave building at the Ex.  By the time they had packed up their kit (and posed for this picture beside the stage) the CNE had already gone into its shut-down mode for what has been a very successful festival, coming off a 1-year Covid shutdown. The CNE was held from August 19th to September 5 th . According to Darrell Brown, the boss of the festival the “ attendance was over 1 million by the middle of last week, a 10 per cent increase when compared t...

Same day afternoon show added Mighty Sparrow surprise guest for Snowflakes Tribute to Greats   By Stephen Weir If you saw the advertisement for the giant Snowflakes  Tribute to the Greats  concert in last week’s Caribbean Camera, did you catch organizer Wendy Jone’s drift when she mentions special guest star in the ad?    No? Well, the cat is now out of the bag, the special guest is the world’s most famous Calypso singer: The Mighty Sparrow and an afternoon show has been added to accommodate the demand for tickets!   It has been a long long time since the Mighty Sparrow was last in Toronto.  He did make an appearance in 2014 at the Caribbean Tales Film Festival screening of the biopic The Glamour Boyz but he did not sing.  That will all change January 26 thanks to Patricia Ward (Sparrow’s Canadian based daughter) and Pan Fantasy’s Wendy Jones for making it all happen. “We have invited him to come and perform many tim...