The sweet sounds of steel pan drew residents and visitors to Franklin Powell Sr. Park for the first scheduled event of St. John Celebration 2026. Seven bands, ranging from third-graders to 34-year veterans, filled the air with melody late Sunday afternoon.
Pan-O-Rama bands lined up along the road from the Loredon Boynes Ferry Dock to St. John Government House at the Battery, not for competition but to entertain. Hard-working volunteers with the Division of Festivals served snacks and drinks from the first note to the last. Yard Vybes band from St. Thomas started the show with rousing renditions of the National Anthem and the Virgin Islands March.
Passersby strolling past the park paused to take in performances by the Ulla F. Muller Elementary School Panatics and the youth community band Gen Fusion,
Making way for the St. Thomas All Stars, a band that’s entertained at district events since 1992. They used their Pan-O-Rama introduction to invite curious music fans to try their hand at the pan — experience not required.
Leading up to the Rising Stars Youth Steel Orchestra performance, the band appeared at the Alexander Farrelly Justice Complex in November when the Superior Court courthouse was dedicated in honor of the group’s founder, the late Judge Verne A. Hodge.
Also celebrating Sunday — St. John’s Love City Pan Dragons; six of their musicians recently graduated from high school as band arrangers, and Ronnie Lee prepared to start graduate school for an advanced degree in music.
It was all capped off by the territory’s only marching steel band — Pan Around the Neck — leading a short tramp from one end of the park to the other, and back to the bandstand at Powell Park.
