Dr. Ray Holman
Ray Anthony Holman, educator/musician, a graduate of Queen’s Royal College and the
University of the West Indies, started playing pan with the Invaders Steel Orchestra in 1956.
He began arranging for the band at age 15, and his first composition “Ray’s Saga” was recorded
in 1960.
In 1963 he revived the defunct Starlift Steel Orchestra, and through his music, proceeded to make the band the most popular in Trinidad and Tobago, in the process producing two of the greatest steelband hits of all time, “I Feel Pretty” and “Penny Lane”.
He has been arranging for Panorama since its inception in 1963, winning on two occasions with “The Bull” in 1969 and “Queen of the Bands” in 1971.
He was the arranger for several steelbands including Starlift, Pandemonium, Antillian All-Stars, Exodus, Carib Tokyo, Invaders, Deltones, Hummingbirds Pan Groove, Phase II, and Skiffle steelbands.
He was the first steelband arranger to compose and perform his own tune for Panorama, with “Pan on the Move” in 1972. At age 20, he won the Ping Pong Solo class at the Music Festival in 1964.
He then went on to become one of the most internationally recognized composers, arrangers, and steelpan players, performing throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan, the Caribbean, and South America.
He composed the highly acclaimed score for the 1991 Crossroads Theatre production of “Black Orpheus” in New Jersey. He also wrote the score for the documovie “Pan: The Odyssey”, and his published compositions are widely performed internationally.
Ray served as musical director for Caribbean shows in Japan, and as adjudicator for pan competitions in Trinidad, Antigua, Grenada, Guyana, the United States and the United Kingdom.
He also wrote the winning compositions for the Calypso Monarch competition in 2014 and 2015.
He has recorded six albums, the latest being his first vocal entitled ‘First Love’ in which he sings ten of his own songs.
His composition for pan and choir took 2nd place at the 2007 Johanness Brahms International Choir Festival in Germany and his music was featured in a TV special with the German National Orchestra in Cologne in 1997.
He taught for 30 years at Fatima College, served as visiting artist at the University of Washington in Seattle from 1998 to 2000, and has conducted workshops and performed at universities in almost every state in the US.
Ray was awarded the Hummingbird Medal in 1988 and was named one of the “50 Icons of Trinidad and Tobago” to commemorate the country’s 50th anniversary of Independence.
In October of 2021, he was awarded the Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of the West Indies.