We are very pleased to reward Carola Bestgen with the PANCH Award 2009 as Ambassador of Pan. Thanks to her commitment and dedication for the handicapped and her steelband for handicapped ?extrem normal – normal extrem! she got unimagined possibilites to call the attention of many famous personalities or even whole orchestras to this instrument.

Carola has been a pan enthousiastic for many years and has played in many places on earth.
For 12 years she has been teaching pan to handicapped and non-handicapped people and 10 years ago she founded ?extrem normal – normal extrem!. Thanks to her work with handicapped people she has already been given two awards: the first Samariterpreis and the prix d'innovation der Raiffeisenbank.
She and?extrem normal – normal extrem! played with the Bernese Symphonic Orchestra, the BBB Big Band, Dodo Hug and for two Federal Councils - Pascal Couchepin and Samuel Schmid who even tried to play a guitar pan himself.
This way the steelpan could be heard in places where it perhaps would never have gotten to. More about Carola: www.musikbestgen.ch