Noel 'Mico' Skair

As submitted by Noel Skair

Mr. Noel Skair known as “Mico” in pan circles is a renowned pannist and steelband arranger.

Mr. Skair, a native of Trinidad has done his share with “the steel drum” as it was then called, to its transformation today as a “musical instrument” in the twentieth century.

In 1969, when the city of Port of Spain, Trinidad, W.I. where he was born was twinned with St. Catherine’s in Canada, “Mico” was a member of the Dixieland Steel Orchestra that performed at the Grape and Wine festival.

Mr. Skair has to his achievements ‘three’ panorama championships:  first with World Wide Symphony in 1990 and then in 1993 in the ‘pan around neck’ category; in 1996 both with Belmont Fifth Dimension in the ‘small band category’ and also with Scrunter’s Pan Groove in the first ever chutney competition.

As leader and arranger for Pan Vibes Steel Orchestra “Mico” Skair has toured France, Italy and Yugoslavia in 1979; Belgium, East and West Germany, (before the fall of the Berlin Wall), Hungary, Holland, Denmark, Santo Domingo, Martinique and Guadeloupe between 1984 and 1987.

Mr. Skair was also privileged to perform in a solo capacity for four months in Japan in 1997, and has also done his share here in the USA by spreading the culture of his Trinidad and Tobago to the youths of the public school system through its cultural curriculum program of teaching the playing of the Steelpan as a musical instrument.