Liam Teague

Teague, Alexis ready
to lead NIU Steel Band

by Mark McGowan

Thirty years after G. Allan O’Connor founded the NIU Steel Band, international pan superstar Liam Teague is taking the figurative baton.

A native of Trinidad and Tobago who became the recognizable face – and hands – of the NIU Steel Band since his arrival on campus more than a decade ago, Teague has grand ambitions for the country’s first and foremost collegiate steelband.

“I want to make NIU the Mecca, at least in the United States, of the steelband. I want to make this the place people come to study,” Teague said. “We are one of DeKalb’s best-kept secrets. God willing, the world will be talking about this band. That’s my goal.”

Paul Bauer, director of the NIU School of Music, has high confidence in Teague and Cliff Alexis, the band’s longtime co-director.

“The foundation that Al O’Connor laid for this ensemble is similar to the work that Ron Modell did with the NIU Jazz Ensemble, and Liam Teague comes to us as the pre-eminent performing artist on steel pan, having been mentored by Al O’Connor,” Bauer said.

“I am very excited about the future development of the band, continuing with the important traditions and going in new directions under a great artist. Liam Teague’s cultural heritage is a tremendous asset,” he added. “Of course, Cliff Alexis continues to provide us with state-of-the-art instruments, as he has been a leading innovator in the making and design of steel pans for decades.”

Teague and Alexis, who came to NIU in 1985 to build and tune steel pans as well as compose and arrange music, both hail from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country where the steel pan was invented.

Both point to the need for more funding as critical, and finding it is among Teague’s plans.

Most pannists from their homeland cannot afford to earn bachelor’s degrees here. Most of those who come to the United States to study do so only for graduate degrees – in NIU’s case, the Trilla Steel Drum Company provides as many dollars as it can for graduate-level study – but Teague feels strongly that he needs four years to properly convey his methods.

“We are blessed to have Les Trilla,” Teague said. “We need more Les Trillas.”

Teague also wants to move the annual standing-room-only NIU Steel Band concert from the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall to a larger venue and add guest artists, changes he hopes will attract more fans and convert others, including some faculty and students in the Music Building.

The concerts themselves will feature more “listener-friendly” songs as well as more excerpts of classical works rather than many of the 10-minute arrangements of the past.

Shorter arrangements also will reduce many of the intricacies apparent only to the players, Teague said, and make it easier for some band members who never had touched steel pans until their arrival on campus. “We will maintain a high level of musicianship and technical demands, though,” he said.

O’Connor, who retired this spring, and Alexis discovered Teague in 1989 when they judged a high school steel pan competition in Trinidad.

Teague began his studies toward a bachelor’s degree in music in 1992. Before coming to the United States, he had distinguished himself in his homeland as the recipient of numerous awards for his abilities on the steelpan as well as the violin and recorder.

He earned widespread acclaim during his years at NIU, garnering rave reviews in major newspapers and gracing the cover of the Chicago Tribune Sunday magazine. But when he completed his master’s degree in 1999, immigration regulations sent him abroad for his professional career and effectively removed him from U.S. concert stages.

Life changed in the spring of 2001, however, when Teague announced he was joining the NIU staff in the College of Visual and Performing Arts as a teacher, performer and college spokesman.

Returning to DeKalb revived his career in this country, including a plum gig at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as a soloist with the Chicago Sinfonietta. He also recorded a CD with School of Music professor Robert Chappell and has toured this country and Taiwan in support.

And now the NIU Steel Band – where he found his “second fathers” in O’Connor and Alexis, where his technical gifts blossomed into something truly musical – is his.

It’s not something he even imagined 11 years ago, when Teague’s motivation was his own playing and future. “I more thought of myself as a soloist,” he said, “and I came to NIU with the initial focus to be a great soloist and a great ambassador for my country.”

But the years in between revealed a calling he hadn’t heard previously: teaching.

“I am helping others to reach their potential,” he said. “There’s so much talent there that needs to be developed.”

Alexis will continue composing and arranging music for the group, including pop, R&B and calypso (Teague will handle the classical material and other styles). “I always have things in my head. It’s the part of the Steel Band I love,” he said.

Although both will need time to learn the business side of the band – “We depended on Al a lot for the logistics,” Alexis said – fans need not worry about the future.

“The band is in good hands,” Alexis said. “Al had a vision. He got me on board after chasing me down for two years. He got Liam on board. His vision worked.”

7-21-03