Cliff Alexis -- co-director of the Northern Illinois University Steel Band -- is considered a living legend within the steel pan world. Before that, he was a six-year-old aspiring pannist in a world that stigmatized pan players as violent gangsters.
"I fell in love with it from an early age,” Alexis said. “The problem was, we were forbidden to go near those guys, because those guys were considered, you know, bad boys in the neighborhood."
But the love of the instrument, which was created in the 1940s, eventually got Alexis to America and, he says, he never looked back.
"And the day I decided to leave Trinidad, I didn't say anything to anybody,” Alexis said. “A friend of mine came and sneaked me out of the house with my suitcase and headed to the airport. To me, the rest is history."
Al O’Connor was head of the NIU Percussion Studio in 1973 when he created the steel band. He was inspired by a band he saw while on his honeymoon in Trinidad. After gathering some steel pans and a few pieces for the band to play, he made it happen at NIU.
"I didn't really know anything about how to play the instrument, how to write music for it, or even where I could get music, so I had to start it all basically from the beginning and teach myself," O’Connor said.
But O'Connor needed someone to tune the pans. So, in the early '80s, O'Connor brought in Alexis -- who was the only steel pan technician in the country at the time.
When the band started to grow, O'Connor and Alexis needed to find more oil drums to make more pans. But how or where can you find a plethora of 55-gallon oil drums for an entire steel band? O'Connor said the band owes retired business owner Lester Trilla a great deal of thanks for that.
Trilla was the president of Trilla Steel Drum Corporation in Chicago. One day, Alexis was picking up an order of steel barrells, and Trilla asked what Alexis did with them. Alexis told him about the NIU ensemble and invited him to their upcoming concert.
O'Connor says Trilla was hooked after that.
"He showed up and came up on the stage after it was done and tapped me on the back of the shoulder and said, 'My name is Lester Trilla - how can I help?'" O’Connor said.
And that's where current NIU Steel Band director Liam Teague comes in.
O'Connor says Teague started playing in the band as a student from Trinidad but ran into financial issues that almost jeopardized finishing his education.
"So I said, 'The first thing - you see that little guy over there?' and was pointing to Liam. I said, 'We're gonna have trouble keeping him in school because of tuition issues.' He said, 'Don't worry about it,’” O’Connor said.
Trilla approached Teague and said, "'Liam, you're coming back. I'll pay your tuition. We'll give you a scholarship, full scholarship.'"
O'Connor says what started as a potentially devastating obstacle for Teague ended in a scholarship program started by Trilla that benefitted students for years to come.
"He said, 'I'll give you $5,000 every three months; you do with it what you want,'” O’Connor said. “So as a result of that, we've put 12 kids - maybe now it's up to 14 - through school as either undergrads or graduate students based on his generosity."
Teague originally did not see himself as a teacher; he focused mainly on performing, composing and arranging music for steel pan. Teaching grew on him over time, but his vested interest in the steel pan's growth never changed.
Teague remains optimistic about the instrument's future.
"I look forward to seeing more new, more original material written for the steel pan, because a lot of the work that's played on the instrument, especially as a solo instrument, are transcriptions of pieces that were originally written for other instruments," Teague said.
Scott McConnell is a former student of Teague's and graduated with performance degrees in steel pan at NIU. McConnell says Teague was one of his biggest role models.
"Basically, Liam was my idol,” McConnell said with a laugh. “I have all of his CDs signed 'To Scott, From Liam.' I felt like such a nerd when I started taking lessons from him."
McConnell now helps teach steel orchestra ensembles within the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra.
"It's so interesting to see how much the instrument has grown,” McConnell said. “And I just hope that I can be a little part in the pie, essentially, if you will, on helping it become what it can become."
Nicole Chopp -- a current member of the NIU Steel Band -- is studying to become a music educator. Her primary focus is percussion, but she wasn't always certain about music being her career path ... that is, until she attended a percussion summer camp right before her senior year of high school. There, she met O'Connor, Teague and other members of the NIU Steel Band.
"By the end of those two weeks, I just knew that I wanted to do music and I wanted to go to NIU,” Chopp said. “I wanted to study with these really great people that I had met, and that's how I got here."
Chopp says she wants to see other students have the opportunities she had with steel pan, regardless of what school they attend.
"NIU is the only school that you can get a master's degree in that,” Chopp said. “Which is wonderful, because then we end up with all these great students here, but it would be great if pan majors had more opportunities elsewhere."
For O'Connor, that's what creating the band was all about -- inspiring students to thrive and succeed.
"There's an awful lot of people that I've come to admire who have been students here that have taken from what we've given them and moved it into the positions that they moved it into,” O’Connor said. “That's incredibly rewarding and pleasing to me."
Alexis has one message for aspiring pannists working toward the instrument's growth:
"Keep doing what you're doing, and represent the instrument well."
