Urban Fox Orchestra (UFO) Steelband

About

Urban Fox Orchestra Steelband, aka UFO, has our panyard in the centre of Ealing in West London, but we play all over London and UK and our main event is Notting Hill Carnival. Our aim is to have fun playing pan and sharing the joy of the beautiful steelpan instrument. Led by a film actor, a visual artist, a virtuoso musical arranger and all our players and volunteers, we offer participants of all ages and abilities the transformative experience of having music, performance and teamwork in our lives all through the year. Even starting as complete beginners, UFO participants are soon performing confidently and enjoying every minute of the music, the teamwork and the fun. UFO has fast become known as an innovative steelband. We deliver groundbreaking workshops in the workplace and in education. Our musical arrangements are exciting yet suit all abilities, our staging vibrant and compelling, and we are the only steelband we know of that teaches the instrument to visually impaired and hearing impaired players, mentored by one of our virtuoso players and founding members who is blind. UFO is part of the charity ‘Fox Carnival‘ that ran 20 years of award winning carnival-arts projects that engaged thousands of young people and put their artworks centre stage at UKs main street Festival like Notting Hill Carnival and The Mayors Thames Festival, and resulting artworks by young people were displayed at The V&A and Tate Modern. Since moving into steelpan we have continued to create new innovations in staging, banner design and the relationship between music and art.