Many of the students in Rick Henson’s steel drums beginners class have already been playing for a year or more. Their affinity for the light and happy percussion persuasion was eventually part of the reason he needed to expand to Aurora earlier this year — more space for more students.
“We moved from a little space in Englewood last April because we needed something bigger,” said Henson, who has been teaching drumming lessons for more than 20 years. “Our old studio was the size of just one of these rooms here in Aurora, and now we have about triple the capacity that we used to have.”
Henson’s new studio, at 10691 E. Bethany Drive in southwest Aurora, is a repurposed dance studio where he operates his weekly classes for steel drums, ukulele and hand pans. He started Rocky Mountain Steel Bands in 2003, and in 13 years, the small production of curious tinkerers has grown to include two community bands that play all over the metro area, year-round classes, summer camps and regular festivals.
“Even though the steel drum community here in the Denver area isn’t huge, it’s growing,” he said. “I’d been looking for a new studio space for a year to accommodate the growth at RMSB, and then suddenly it became dire and I needed more space. It’s lucky that we landed in Aurora.”
He said he’s excited to share the musical culture of Trinidad and Tobago with the Aurora community, and hopes to get students from Aurora schools involved with new youth community bands.“Rick’s new studio is such an improvement, even though it’s further away,” said Irena Donaldson, a resident of Larkspur who has been taking steel drum classes from Henson for more than a year. “It doesn’t matter though. This is the place to be.”
Donaldson got involved with Rocky Mountain Steel Bands after happening onto a performance by Henson’s community band in Roxborough.
“We took our grandchildren to Roxborough for this annual arts festival … and as we were leaving I heard Rick’s band. They were playing this calypso music. So we stopped and I was just entranced,” she said. “I saw this woman who was just so relaxed and just kind of jamming in the back, smiling and happy. And I thought, ‘I could probably do that, too.’
“I signed myself and my husband for lessons and ordered the pans a month later,” Donaldson said. “It’s such a nice group of people and I think that’s in the nature of this kind of music; steel drums tend to attract happy people who love life and who love to make music.”
Darien Davis, who drives to her weekly steel drum class from Boulder, would describe herself as that kind of person.
“I retired four years ago and this was on my bucket list,” Davis said. “I went on a cruise last year and there was a steel drum band playing on the deck. I went over to listen, and a woman handed me a stick to play and as soon as I got home I found Rick and signed up to learn from him. It’s been truly uplifting.”
Many of Henson’s newer students say the energy and socialization of the steel drums classes have drawn them from all over the state.
“I’ve had a dozen or more people tell me that the steel drums have changed their lives. It’s something that becomes a huge part of people’s lives because of the social element,” Henson said. “It really becomes a part of who you are.”
Henson’s classes, summer camps and workshops are for people of all ages. He and two other teachers have more than a dozen classes every week, and the same amount of performances every month. When he moved to Aurora, he began offering ukulele classes.
“The expansion has led to the offering of a bunch of new classes, but the biggest thing is that right now I have a real mixture of people who have been playing for a long time,” he said. “I have two students who have been with me since day one, and several other have been with me over 10 years. Right now, I’m working on a new community band of some of those more seasoned students to help with an outreach campaign here in Aurora.”
His plan for 2017 is to dive into an outreach campaign through a new community band to perform at city schools and various venues in Aurora to expand his growing network of steel drum enthusiasts all over the east metro region.
“I love how diverse Aurora is. People are open to lots of different cultural activities and so I think the steel drums will be right at home here,” Henson said. “We’re going to be forming an outreach team to spread the steel drum culture and share with people what it’s all about. We’ll start rehearsing and then we’re going to start booking performances in February.”