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Date: 9.21.05 NIU Steel Band leaders Teague,
Alexis, share honors,
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Cliff Alexis and Liam Teague |
“That's Cliff,” Teague says, rising to turn the knob for Cliff Alexis.
Alexis enters, clutching a plaque he received in June during the World Steelband Music Festival for his “outstanding contribution to the development of the steelpan in the U.S.A.”
“Oh,” Teague asks with a grin, “come to show off”
Such congenial kidding is expected between these two countrymen, who both hail from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, where the steel pan was invented and remains the national instrument.
Yet Teague, one of the world's steel pan virtuosos, and Alexis, regarded internationally for his craftsmanship at building and tuning steel pans, are profoundly serious and passionate about their mission here: to provide their native instrument with global legitimacy in the music world.
“I never wanted to be a teacher. My dream when I came here was to be the greatest musician ever, as a performer. Everything I do now goes way beyond myself,” says Teague, whose appointment to the NIU School of Music faculty was announced June 29.
“As individuals, we want to achieve success, but for me it's also to help other people, especially because this instrument is so young and it's the national instrument of my country. We're opening up doorways. Not enough people worldwide understand the potential, or have even been exposed to it.”
“There are people not on the educational side of things who think differently,” Alexis adds, “but what we do here is much more beneficial to this instrument. How much are they doing to further the instrument? In the end, all pannists will benefit from what NIU is doing here. The pan is taking its rightful place in the musical sphere.”
What NIU is doing – what retired NIU Steel Band founder Al O'Connor began in 1973 and, with Alexis, nurtured into a steelpan major some 14 years later – lured Teague and Alexis from their shared homeland to DeKalb.
Teague came to NIU in 1993 as an 18-year-old student chasing dreams and broadening his musical horizons. Alexis came seven years earlier, a road-seasoned musician and educator sharing a vision and pursuing a mission.
Here, students tackle an eclectic selection of music, from the traditional calypso to classical literature to rhythm and blues to new compositions. Here, students can watch and assist Alexis, one of the world's foremost builders and tuners of steel pans who also is a composer and arranger for and player with the NIU Steel Band.
Here, Teague is proud to say, is the school of choice for a dozen steel pan majors who hail from Aruba, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Trinidad and elsewhere, including other places in the Caribbean.
“That really says something about the program,” says Teague, the most prominent alum of the world's only institution to offer bachelor's and master's degrees in steel pan.
“One of my main goals is to do my part toward educating steel pan players and promoting musical literacy for steel pan players, especially from Trinidad,” he adds. “The band itself can only go so far because, year to year, we have players graduating. My main focus, along with Cliff, is to keep the level of musicianship at a certain standard and not letting that drop.”
Alexis gives a fatherly nod in Teague's direction.
“Liam didn't know in his life he'd be in a position to teach this instrument,” he says quietly. “Whatever he does, what direction he wants this to go, I say, ‘Follow him.' He is 31 years old now. He is the person who is looking at the vision. My vision is past. The degree program is entrenched. It's his baby. It's his baby. I will give him whatever support he needs.”
Teague most recently ran the program and led the band as a steelpan research associate.
He learned of his appointment to the faculty last fall; his memories of the meeting with Harold Kafer, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, are bittersweet. Teague's father, Russell, had died the day before.
“Dean Kafer gives me the great news,” Teague recalls, “and one of the most important people in my life wasn't around to share that moment, and he would've been so proud. I broke down in tears.”
But the mission remains, and Teague is eager about his first semester as an official member of the faculty.
He and Alexis are looking forward to the band's Sunday, Nov. 6, concert. Both also hope 2007 will bring the World Steelband Music Festival to Chicago; NIU took an unprecedented second place in the competition in 2000, a year it was held in Trinidad.
Robert Chappell, a professor in the NIU School of Music and a longtime collaborator with Teague, says the students soon will share Teague's enthusiasm.
“Liam, along with being whom I consider to be the finest steel pannist in the world, is also one who is totally dedicated to the instrument and the expansion of the instrument,” Chappell says.
“These students at NIU are going to get not only his expertise and technique and musicality, but they're also going to get that burning passion for the instrument and the almost missionary zeal, if you will, about spreading the word of the steel pan. You might not get that from someone else who might be a fine player. That's an intangible Liam brings.”
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