FMEA Steel Band Festival

April 12, 2024
Blankner K-8 School
Orlando, FL
Registration Deadline: March 1

The purpose of the Steel Band Festival is to provide steel band students and directors a positive performance outlet and motivating goal, to share ensemble literature among teachers, to create an event that allows teachers to become more knowledgeable in their craft through clinician contact time, all to ultimately advance the experience of steel band students throughout the State of Florida.

Overview: The focus of this event will be on the performance of steelpan ensembles. Every performance will receive a supportive clinic from this year’s clinician.

Teacher Qualifications: Each director should be a current member of the Florida Music Education Association (FMEA) by March 1.

Student Qualifications: Steel band members must be a part of an elementary or secondary school curriculum either during school or extracurricular.

Performance Time: Each entry will have 20 minutes of performance and a 20-minute clinic. 

Performance Subdivision: Each steel band entry can divide the performance time into smaller ensembles if desired. For example, an entry of 20 can play one song utilizing all 20 students, followed by one song for 10 students, followed by the other 10. 

Music selection criteria: Due to the variance in curriculum and class structure, directors should select music that is appropriate and challenging to the students in their classroom. If the music being performed is published, the director must bring the original score for the clinician. This is to assist the clinician in providing useful comments and also to discourage unlawful photocopying. Directors are, of course, able to perform their own unpublished arrangements.

Directors are encouraged to program at least one selection that includes a traditional soca or calypso style including typical engine room instruments.

Equipment: Music stands will be provided for each performing group. Performing groups must provide all instruments and instrument stands used in performance, including drum set and engine room. There will be access to electrical outlets.

Entry Fee: $10 per student. Checks are to be made payable to “FMEA,” 402 Office Plaza, Tallahassee, FL 32301-2757. The entry form, generated by the online entry application below, must be printed and signed by the principal and director and mailed along with the check. 

Entry Deadline: The online application must be completed by March 1, and the signed paperwork and check for payment should be postmarked by March 1.

Questions: Fill out the Contact Us page and you will receive a reply from Jared Allen, Festival Coordinator

Steel Band Festival Application

Clinician

Our clinician for the 2025 Steel Band Festival is Thomas Miller, the Steel Drums Adjunct Faculty & Director of the Lamont Steel Drum Ensemble at the University of Denver. 

Mr. Miller's vast experience as a performing percussionist, steel drummer, composer, arranger, and educator has made him one of the most respected and sought-after soloists and clinicians today. Miller has performed worldwide with his own popular group, Pan Ramajay, as well as notable pan masters Andy Narell, Ray Holman, Othello Molineaux, and the Our Boys Steel Orchestra. Miller was also a featured guest performer at Trinidad and Tobago's annual Pan and Jazz Festival in 2005 and 2010. Other credits include renowned bassist Michael Manring, woodwind virtuoso Paul McCandless, Germany's famed WDR Big Band, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Orchestra, the Berkeley Symphony under the direction of Kent Nagano, and as a member of the Windham Hill recording group, Montreux. He has added his unique style of percussive touch to numerous recordings covering a variety of musical styles with artists such as Grammy award winners Alison Krauss and the late John Denver, banjoist Allison Brown, and Venezuelan songstress Maria Marquez. Miller's playing has also been featured on film scores for the movies Commando, Nina Takes a Lover, and The Mystic Masseur, as well as ads for Minute Maid, Sony, Brodia.com, the SIMs computer games, and many others. His arrangements and compositions are also featured on Menus and Music's Pleasures of the Caribbean recipe book's accompanying CD. He is equally as comfortable in the studio as a producer, having produced and mixed several critically acclaimed steel band recordings for his own group Pan Ramajay as well as master pannist Ray Holman, The Chabot Panhandlers Steel Orchestra, the Miami University Steel Band, and the Lamont Steel Drum Ensemble.

Miller's composing talents have earned him grants from the prestigious Meet the Composer Foundation five times, fostering the creation, performance, and education of audiences through his compositions featuring steel drums and percussion. This dedication to musical education has won Miller many invitations as an artist in residence at numerous universities and colleges throughout the US. Miller currently is the director of the Lamont Steel Drum Ensemble at the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music where he serves as an adjunct artist-faculty member. Miller has also served on the faculty of the JAZZ School in Berkeley, CA, the Mannette Steel Drum Workshop in Morgantown, WV, and the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. Miller is currently the director of the annual Pan Ramajay Summer Steel Drum Festival in Denver, CO.

Miller is the founder and president of one of the foremost steel drum music publishing companies, Pan Ramajay Productions. Pan Ramajay Productions features Miller's own compositions and recordings as well as those of other prominent steel drum composers worldwide.