STEEL DRUMMER AVIEL
Aviel Kellile Scanterbury was born on the 18th of April 1994 to Wilbur and Betty Scanterbury. He was raised in the community of La Horquetta and attended the St. Mary’s Anglican School. Aviel has always had a passion for music for as long as he could remember as his father would always play different genres of music, especially jazz music at home. Aviel started play the steelpan at age 4 under the mentorship of Gary Straker. As a child he played at a lot of concerts and competitions both as a soloist and as a member of the Gary Straker’s Pan School where in 2001 he received the Player of the Year award.
It wasn’t until secondary school where he started taking music seriously as potential career. From form 3 onwards, he was influenced a lot by his music teachers and owes a great deal of respect to his CSEC music teacher Anthony Adams for steering him in that direction. It was at the secondary school level where he started coming into his own as a steelpan player where he was voted best instrumentalist at the WeTalent competition in St. James in 2008 and 2009. In 2010 while being a member of his school’s steelband BATCE Steel, he won the Nation Music Festival in his category and also the Pan in the Classroom Steelband Music Festival in the solo, duet and quartet categories. It was also at secondary school where he started arranging. He would arrange music for the school’s steelband and he arranged in his first panorama in 2011 alongside Denzil Headley where the band placed 3rd.
After secondary school, Aviel went to the UWI where he graduated with his BA in Musical Arts with First Class Honours in 2016. At the UWI he was a member of UWI Arts Steel and started being a musician for hire. He continued arranging for his secondary school band and also arranged for Longdenville Claytones Steel Orchestra at the 2013 edition of the National Steelband festival in the ensemble category guiding them to their first finals round in nine years in all competitions. He also began teaching and arranging at birdsong Academy where he arranged alongside Nicholas Jones in 2015 where the band placed 4th in the non school’s category of Junior Panorama. While arranging for BATCE steel, the band placed 2nd on two occasions at Junior panorama in 2015 and 2016. Also in 2016 Aviel became the musical director of the La Horquetta Pan Academy, arranging for them in their first ever junior panorama effort placing 7th at the finals.
His love and dedication to music and the steel pan in particular has allowed him to distinguish himself as the recipient of many awards including championships for his ability on the steel pan. Aviel’s main aim for panorama is to be one of the greatest arrangers of all time and to also be given the opportunity to arrange in panorama competitions around the world. He is a current student at UTT studying Music Technology and also hopes to graduate with his masters in jazz and help spread the gospel of steelpan around the world.