A young Victor Provost walked into his St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, home after hearing a song in his class. He asked his father if he’d ever heard the tune before. His dad selected a record from his collection and placed it on the turntable.  

“I’ve never heard anything like it before,” said Provost.  

Provost, a renowned steel pannist, has played across the globe, and teaches classes in world music at George Mason University.  

The musicial will visit Syracuse from Nov. 7 to 10 to teach a steel drums master class and a perform with the Insomniac Wookies at La Casita Cultural Center. 

Provost first picked up music from his father, whom he described as a “Renaissance man.” He said he remembers his father’s instruments laying around his house. 

“I remember being very young and him showing me, note–for–note, how to play tunes like (Beethoven’s) “Für Elise,” and (Doris Day’s) “Sentimental Journey.” 

Growing up, Provost heard jazz tunes and bossa nova records from musicians like jazz-pianist Chick Corea and a jazz-bossa nova album called “Getz/Gilberto” by Stan Getz and João Gilberto. He was later influenced by these types of sounds which eventually created be-bop, jazz music, jazz and island fusion.  

One day while Provost was practicing classical piano at Saint John’s School of the Arts, he heard the steel band play. Intrigued by the bright sound coming from the pans, then 12-year-old Provost followed the sound and found a room of his friends playing the instrument. 

Rudy Wells, who shaped Provost’s steel drum experience, described him as a disciplinarian. Provost said Wells taught 30 young Caribbean students in his ensemble without sheet music.  

Instead, he would go around the room and teach by rote, a technique where the students would remember music through muscle memory.  

After leaving school, Provost stayed in touch with Wells who continued to mentor him throughout his career as a musician.  

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Combining his childhood influence from his father in jazz and his knowledge of the steel pan from his formative years, Provost blended the bright and dollop-sounding music of the Caribbean with the smooth and free-form music of jazz.  

Provost said that there’s an “explosion” in jazz education in the United States, and it shows that there’s an interest in that type of music.  

“Jazz is in the middle of a reawakening right now,” said Provost. “There are a few musicians right now that are bridging some of those cultural and generational gaps together.”  

In 2005, while directing a steel-pan group of high-school kids near Virginia Beach, he crossed paths with David Knapp, an assistant professor of music education at Syracuse University.  

Then, in 2014, after going a few years without seeing each other, Knapp was leaving Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Provost contacted him. He was playing a gig in Muscat, Oman, and asked Knapp if he wanted to come see him. Knapp drove across the Arabian desert to see Provost play. 

Being the director of the steel drum ensemble, Knapp wanted Provost to come teach steel drum students at SU and play. 

At the master class on Thursday, Provost said he hopes to teach and refine SU student’s playing ability on the steel pan. Basile Touratier, a French exchange music student at SU playing the steelpan, tries to attend every master class he possibly can. 

“I like it since it’s a shared moment,” Touratier said. “It’s great when they talk about how they reached this point. The class shouldn’t be about theory, but more about the entire idea of experience.” 

Provost said that he tries to incorporate his own life experience into his master classes and how to survive as a musician. He also said that he tries to have the student be on the instrument as much as possible to keep them motivated and continue practicing. 

The steel pannist will also be playing with multiple ensembles at SU during his time here, including the steel drum ensembles. 

“We spend a lot of time dispelling the ideas of other types of music that aren’t American or aren’t Western,” said Provost. “We have this idea that everything that is us is normal, while in other countries they feel exactly the same way about us, so I just want everyone to listen openly.”  

Published on November 3, 2019 at 11:22 pm

Contact Christopher: cscargla@syr.edu | @chrisscargs