STEEL DRUMS

Robert Thwaites

Mr. Robert Thwaites has been performing Steelband music since the age of 9, and was a member of the legendary Pan Am Northstars Steelband in Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.  He has also toured internationally with this group, and these tours include two appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, and the Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. 

Since settling in the U.S. in 1971, Mr. Thwaites was instrumental in forming Pan United Youth Movement, Inc. (PUYM), a New York 501(c)3 non-profit organization, to empower youth through steel band music and to develop a professional steel orchestra that can showcase the versatility of this instrument. 

Mr. Thwaites has performed with several prominent steel bands in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area, is a gifted arranger, a soloist, and has taught Pan Music at several locations including Northwestern High School, Hyattsville, Maryland. He joined the teaching staff of the Ottley SchoolMusic in June 2011, successfully teaching students as young as 4 years old, as well as children, teens, adults and seniors.  His OMS students have been performing, not only in the monthly recitals at OMS, but also do gigs in the community.  See here 5-year-old Alex Adjahoe playing “O Tannenbaum” in his 2^nd gig, the Washington National Moravian Church on Christmas Eve, 2011. 

JONATHAN EDWARD LEWIS,  B.Mus. Ed.,

DRUM SET  &  SNARES

Jonathan Edward Lewis is a drummer in demand in the Washington, D. C. metropolitan area.  Besides performing as the drummer of the UDC Jazz Ensemble, a big band group, he is also the drummer for the Howard University's Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel Choir under Ned Lewis.  He studied music education at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and graduated from the University of the District of Columbia with a Bachelor of Music Education.  His philosophy is that an outstanding education must be able to develop the skills for students to learn, being aware that students think and develop differently, and he educator should to become an accessible resource for students to depend on. 

STEEL DRUMS

ANWAR GABRIEL MYRON OTTLEY, B.Mus., (organ) M.Mus. (conducting), Steel Drums, is a product of the Ottley Music School where he took piano lessons and music theory with his aunt, Nevilla Ottley since he was in elementary school. For four years, he conducted the 35-voice Black Student Union Chorale of Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, MD in command performances of music of Black Composers from the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic to the present day, a cappella or with symphony orchestra and/or with band. His first degree from Washington Adventist University is in organ performance, after switching from Music Education.

Anwar Ottley joined the Ottley Music School faculty in the summer of 2004, teaching steel drums, after having taught it for two years before at Metropolitan Seventh-day Adventist Church, in the MSSO II as a teenager. His effective work with the youth and adults of the Ottley Music School camps has produced students who are excited about studying it privately in the school year. The summer 2006 voice, drama and dance camp students pans played for the opening of the University Town Center Towers, with then present (Ehrlich) and former (Glendenning) governors of the State of Maryland in attendance, as well as the Mayor of Hyattsville Bill Gardiner), and the County Executive of Prince George's County (Jack Johnson).

He was the teacher of the pilot program in Prince George's County Public Schools, teaching the students of Paint Branch Elementary School in College Park at OMS. They now have incorporated that program as part of their core curriculum, being the first and to date, May 2008, the only school in the Prince George's Public School System to have the pans in their school. Besides teaching steel drums at the OMS, he has established an Ottley Music School Steel Ensemble that performed locally. Mr. Ottley graduated with his masters in conducting at Andrews University in May 2009.