In­nis Fran­cis

in­nis_fran­cis@ya­hoo.com

Af­ter he re­ceived the recog­ni­tion for the steel pan, Pro­fes­sor Liam Teague said to be con­sid­ered by the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do brings him great joy as a San Fer­nan­do res­i­dent.

Teague now lives in the US was in­vit­ed to re­ceive sec­ond city’s ho­n­our by May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo for fly­ing the red, white, and black high and for his con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion­al in­stru­ment. He was ho­n­oured last month dur­ing the San Fer­nan­do City Week cel­e­bra­tion in the area of cul­tur­al am­bas­sador.

Re­grel­lo said: “Sev­er­al of San Fer­nan­do pan per­son­al­i­ties have ex­celled here as arrangers, play­ers, soloists, etc. How­ev­er, it is how Pro­fes­sor Liam Teague has dis­tin­guished him­self in the field of acad­e­mia, the role he has played in en­sur­ing that sev­er­al of our stu­dents at­tained were prop­er­ly qual­i­fied in the field of mu­sic that pro­pelled the in­stru­ment which stood out.”

Teague mi­grat­ed to the US and en­rolled at North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty (NIU) at the age of 19. He has since gone on to com­plete his mas­ter’s and has been work­ing at NIU for the past ten years as a pro­fes­sor. Some of his crafts­man­ship lo­cal­ly is ac­cred­it­ed to arrange­ments he has done for Carib Skif­fle Steel Or­ches­tra, Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra, Star­lift Steel Or­ches­tra, and Har­vard Harps Steel Or­ches­tra. Teague said he was most­ly in Trinidad dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son, es­pe­cial­ly for Panora­ma.

“It is al­ways a spe­cial feel­ing be­ing here and when my work and con­tri­bu­tion to the art form is recog­nised by the peo­ple of my birth.”

He said he was hap­py to be work­ing at NIU which of­fers schol­ar­ships to many T&T stu­dents to pur­sue their bach­e­lor’s and mas­ter’s in steel­pan.