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Reading All Steel Percussion Orchestra will be in Broad Street later this month to drum up support for its title bid
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Steel band drum up support

August 18, 2011

Reading All Steel Percussion Orchestra (RASPO) will be in Broad Street later this month to drum up support for its title bid.

The steel band will be attempting to outshine eight other groups from across the country in the Panorama UK Steel Band Championship.

RASPO will be going for the Champions of Steel title for the second time in the annual contest, which will kick off the world-famous Notting Hill Carnival on Saturday, August 27.

And it is asking Reading people to support it by joining its float in the carnival procession on the Sunday and Monday.

The band will be giving a preview of its performance outside M&S in Broad Street between 4.30pm and 7pm on Thursday, August 25.

Young musicians from as far afield as Aberdeen have joined RASPO’s core of 16 to make a 40-piece orchestra, which will play an arrangement of Destra’s ‘Calling Meh’.

All championship contenders have to perform a 10-minute version of a popular calypso and Reading’s has been arranged by Iman Pascall.

The 24-year-old, from New York’s Berklee College of Music, is also training the band members for the big championship day.

This great mix of talent is a joint project between CultureMix Arts, which manages RASPO, and Aberdeen’s Bucksburn Academy.

Anyone who wants to join RASPO at the carnival should visit www.culturemixarts.co.uk or email mary@culturemixarts.co.uk.

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Good luck, and no doubt it will kick off at the NHC.

I Ron
19/08/2011 at 08:39

Good luck to RASPO and remember that being invited to take part in this event means that you are one of the top steel bands in the country irrespective of the final result.