SAN­DRA L BLOOD

mindup.slblood@gmail.com

The Pa­gani­ni of the Steel­pan as he’s favourably dubbed, is the hum­ble, il­lus­tri­ous, high­ly-dec­o­rat­ed Pro­fes­sor of Mu­sic, Di­rec­tor of Steel­pan Stud­ies at North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty (NIU) and renowned leader of the NIU Steel­band, Liam Teague, a na­tive of San Fer­nan­do, Trinidad.

Teague re­ceived the Key to the San Fer­nan­do City on No­vem­ber 30, 2022 from the may­or of the city, Al­der­man Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, dur­ing a func­tion host­ed by him at his of­fice – an oc­ca­sion that wrapped-up the 34th An­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of the city.

For those who were not aware of why Teague is de­scribed as the Pa­gani­ni of pan, or how gift­ed he is as a com­pos­er, his per­for­mance of Lord Kitch­en­er’s Pan Night and Day af­ter his ac­cep­tance speech, and the ren­di­tion, Hands Like Light­en­ing, com­posed by him and per­formed by guest artiste, Venezue­lan José Hen­riques, 23, demon­strat­ed.

On De­cem­ber 13, Teague ex­posed Guardian Me­dia to his pan and mu­sic jour­ney.

“My com­mit­ment to demon­strat­ing the mu­si­cal pos­si­bil­i­ties of the steel­pan took me through­out the world, and not on­ly have I re­ceived many awards and ac­co­lades from the US, but al­so from T&T, in­clud­ing the Hum­ming­bird Na­tion­al Award (Sil­ver) and the ANSA McAL Caribbean Award for Ex­cel­lence.” From the US, in part, an NIU Board of Trustees Pro­fes­sor­ship Award this year, 2022, and a Pres­i­den­tial Re­search, Schol­ar­ship and Artistry Pro­fes­sor Award in 2018.

Dur­ing his ac­cep­tance speech, Pro­fes­sor Teague stat­ed, he chose to speak from his heart be­cause it is more or­gan­ic. Sum­ma­rized: Even though he has “re­ceived many ac­co­lades, es­pe­cial­ly in the USA, there is al­ways some­thing very spe­cial about be­ing rec­og­nized by the place of my birth.”

Teague al­so ap­prised of some of what he has been up to over the years, and am­pli­fied just how much he would like to have more of a pres­ence in T&T, as he’s deeply pas­sion­ate about help­ing peo­ple. He said he’s ex­treme­ly for­tu­nate to do what he ab­solute­ly loves in life 24/7, and he would love to serve as a men­tor to young mu­si­cians.

Teague has ap­peared in con­cert with Gram­my-Award-win­ning mu­si­cians Paquito D’Rivera, Dave Samuels, Za­kir Hus­sain and Dame Eve­lyn Glen­nie, and has reg­u­lar­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with NIU col­leagues and mul­ti-in­stru­men­tal­ists see­ing him co-found­ed the steel en­sem­ble, Pan­gel­ic, He’s won sev­er­al no­table com­pe­ti­tions such as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Steel­band Fes­ti­val So­lo Cham­pi­onship and the Saint Louis Sym­pho­ny Vol­un­teers As­so­ci­a­tion Young Artist Com­pe­ti­tion.

He’s per­formed with a se­ries of pan out­fits. Apart from T&T’s Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars and the bp Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tras, the Na­tion­al Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, in part, Tai­wan Na­tion­al Sym­pho­ny, Czech Na­tion­al Sym­pho­ny, Saint Louis Sym­pho­ny, Chica­go Sin­foni­et­ta, Aval­on String Quar­tet, Nexus, Dart­mouth Wind En­sem­ble, In­di­ana Uni­ver­si­ty Sym­phon­ic Band, and Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son March­ing Band.

Teague has al­so ben­e­fit­ted the Per­cus­sive Arts So­ci­ety In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tions (PA­SIC), many ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions across the globe, the In­ter­na­tion­al Pan Ra­ma­jay Com­pe­ti­tion and Vir­ginia Arts Fes­ti­val – PANora­ma Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val.

Many of his com­po­si­tions and arrange­ments are pub­lished with Mau­mau­Mu­sic, Pan­Press, Ra­ma­jay­Mu­sic, and Wen­deln Mu­sic Works. He has com­mis­sioned out­stand­ing com­posers to write for the steel­pan with some be­ing Michael Col­grass, Jan Bach, Lib­by Larsen, Andy Ak­i­ho, Deb­o­rah Fish­er Tea­son, Joey Sell­ers, Ben Wahlund, Kevin Bobo, Robert Chap­pell, Ge­of Brad­field, Casey Can­gelosi, Gus­ta­vo Leone, Vic­tor Provost, and Eti­enne Charles.

He is the steel­band di­rec­tor at Birch Creek Mu­sic Per­for­mance Cen­ter in Door Coun­ty, Wis­con­sin, and has al­so taught and per­formed at the Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty Sum­mer Arts Camp and at the In­ter­lochen Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts.

The world’s largest pub­lish­er of print mu­sic, Hal Leonard Cor­po­ra­tion, has pub­lished Teague’s steel­pan method for be­gin­ners.

Pro­fes­sor Liam Teague has cre­at­ed arrange­ments for the most cel­e­brat­ed steel­band com­pe­ti­tion in the world, T&T’s Na­tion­al Panora­ma, and has many record­ings to his cred­it, in­clud­ing Hands Like Light­ning, For Lack of Bet­ter Words, Panoram­ic: Rhythm Through an Un­ob­struct­ed View and Open.

The in­com­pa­ra­ble Pro­fes­sor re­vealed he would like to form stronger ties with lo­cal steel or­ches­tras where he can pro­vide pos­si­ble schol­ar­ships and tu­ition waivers ac­cord­ing­ly. He has fa­cil­i­tat­ed schol­ar­ships for young Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to at­tend sum­mer mu­sic camp at the Birch Creek Mu­sic and Per­for­mance Acad­e­my.

Re­grel­lo said that Teague pro­found­ly im­pact­ed him giv­en his un­ceas­ing ac­com­plish­ments which in­spired him to be­stow up­on him the Key. Teague thanked Re­grel­lo for hav­ing nev­er giv­en up on him. At that func­tion, Teague was in­vit­ed to vis­it his place of birth at any time, “key or no key.”

Con­tin­u­ing to ra­di­ate, on De­cem­ber 11, the San Fer­nan­di­an Pan bea­con re­ceived an­oth­er out­stand­ing achieve­ment. He be­came NIU’s Com­mence­ment Cer­e­monies Mace­bear­er.

Teague ex­tends greet­ings to San Fer­nan­do and T&T at large, and said he’s fur­ther hum­bled by the two re­wards.

“I wish my na­tive home­land a peace­ful and lov­ing sea­son and great new year. No mat­ter what, I will al­ways cel­e­brate T&T, and I’m eter­nal­ly grate­ful.”