Trinidad-born pan pioneer Elliott "Ellie" Mannette has been invited to the White House to receive the 1999 American National Endowment Award for the Arts, an honour normally conferred by the US President.

The Endowment Award, America's most prestigious in the arts, which comes with a cash prize of US $ 20,000 will be conferred on Mannette on September 3^rd and will equate him with former recipients like legendary musicians Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

Mannette is, however, one of only nine persons born outside the US to have been given the award since the programme began in 1925.

Speaking yesterday to the Express from his office at West Virginia University (WVU), where he is artist-in-residence and an adjunct professor in the College of Music, Mannette was audibly ecstatic. "This is not as big for me as it is for pan," he said, "because it is the highest and most prestigious honour you can get in this country for any work of art and it is being given for steelband."

Mannette, 73, has been closely involved with the development of pan for the past 55 years, the last eight of which have been spent at WVU, where he coordinates the newly-developed steelband studies programme, which teaches all aspects of the steel drum art-form. Students can participate in extensive tuning and construction courses, as well as perform in one of the various steel band ensembles.

Mannette is known throughout the world as the principal innovator and designer of the modern steel drum. Instruments made by him form part of the display at many of the world's finest museums, including the Smithsonian Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Contemporary Art Gallery. His instruments are also used in hundreds of schools, colleges, and private ad community programmes in the United States and abroad.

A founder of the modern Invaders Steel Orchestra, Mannette is still active as a performer as well. Just three weeks ago he was featured in a live BBC International broadcast to an audience estimated at 43 million.

He is currently working on a WVU pan-tuning project, involving a group of chemists, metallurgists and two nuclear physicists. The group is attempting to develop new alloys for pan production that will keep the instruments in tune for longer periods. Mannette was careful to advise that nothing he is doing should be construed as giving away this country's culture.

"Never mind what people say about jeopardizing Trinidad culture, by showing people here how to tune pan," he said. "All the work and now the award will promote pan instead. Pan is Trinidadian and no one can take that away. In any case, whatever we discover or achiever, we will document and I will be sending that to Trinidad to the Ministry of Culture and we will donate copies to the National Museum. Let the pan people there know that, while I might not be in agreement with every thing they do, I will never sell Trinidad short."

Mannette is planning to bring a group of 18 musicians and scientists to Trinidad next year for a month to demonstrate his work. "I hope to work with the University of the West Indies (UWI) there and put on a couple of concerts, so the people will understand what we have been doing all these years."

Ellie's brother, Vernon "Birdie" Mannette, was last night brimming with congratulations. "He really deserves it," Birdie said. "After all, he is in this business since boyhood and you could say that he is the person who really invented the pan as we know it. It was Ellie who changed pan from the convex surface to that concave shape we all take for granted nowadays and that is one of the greatest improvements to the instrument. He deserves everything he gets for pan."

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