Pannist Darius Austin wins playing unfamiliar genres

Darius Austin

When pannist Darius Austin takes the stage, the atmosphere comes alive with jubilant music. His contagious spirit always finds his audience reciprocating the feeling and it was this that he brought to the Guyana Talent Search competition, resulting in him finishing as one of ten winners.

From the start of the show, viewers could see Darius’ expertise on the steel pans and how much the judges were marvelling at his performances. Certainly no amateur, the 23-year-old has nine years of playing the steel pan under his belt, three of them on a professional basis.

Darius nearly did not make it into the competition. The musician shared that he was unaware of it until a friend saw the advertising for it on Instagram and reached out to him on WhatsApp. He enthused that once he learnt of the competition he wasted no time preparing his one-minute video as he was all too eager to be part of it, having not performed before an audience in a long time.