9th Annual San Francisco International Piano Festival
Stephen Prutsman & TNTeague Duo: Steelpan & Piano Masterworks
Stephen Prutsman, piano
Liam Teague, steelpan
Jaden Teague-Núñez, steelpan & piano
The festival welcomes father and son duo Liam Teague and Jaden Teague-Núñez in their festival debut, featuring the endlessly varied and colorful music for steelpan and piano. Active in performance, composition, and education, Liam Teague is renowned as a virtuoso leader on his instrument. Professor of Music and Director of Steelpan Studies at Northern Illinois University, Mr. Teague directs the internationally acclaimed NIU Steelband. Rising star Jaden Teague-Núñez has already established himself as a prominent voice in the music world through his performances with the Chicago Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and his solo and duo performances broadcast internationally. The program opens with a special appearance by festival favorite Stephen Prutsman, inimitable pianist, composer, and improviser. Don’t miss this uniquely exciting evening.
The San Francisco International Piano Festival is supported in part by a grant from the Ross McKee Foundation.
About the artists
Liam Teague is Professor of Music and Director of Steelpan Studies at Northern Illinois University (NIU) and leads the renowned NIU Steelband. He is the recipient of an NIU Board of Trustees Professorship Award (2022); Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor Award (2018); and an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship Award (2023).
Hailed as the “Paganini of the Steelpan”, he has received several honors from Trinidad and Tobago, his country of birth, including the Hummingbird National Award (Silver), the Ansa McAl Caribbean Award for Excellence, and the Keys to the City of San Fernando. In 2024, the Fox Valley Orchestra honored Teague with its Champion of the Arts award.
As a soloist, Teague has performed with diverse ensembles such as: National Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan National Symphony, Czech National Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, Panama National Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, Vermeer String Quartet, Avalon String Quartet, Hannaford Street Silver Brass Ensemble, River City Brass Band, Nexus, Dartmouth Wind Ensemble, Indiana University Symphonic Band, and the BpTT Renegades Steel Orchestra. Teague has also collaborated with Grammy-Award winning musicians Paquito D’Rivera, Dave Samuels, Zakir Hussain and Dame Evelyn Glennie, and regularly concertizes with the steelpan and harp duo Pangelic, which he founded with Faye Seeman. Liam has also appeared at several Percussive Arts Society International Conventions and international educational institutions.
Many of his compositions and arrangements are published with Panademy, MaumauMusic, RamajayMusic, and Wendeln Music Works. Teague has commissioned several outstanding composers to write for the steelpan; these include Michael Colgrass, Jan Bach, Libby Larsen, Andy Akiho, Deborah Fisher Teason, Joey Sellers, Ben Wahlund, Erik Ross, Kevin Bobo, David Gordon, Robert Chappell, Geof Bradfield, Casey Cangelosi, Gustavo Leone, Victor Provost, Etienne Charles, James Gourlay, and Reggie Thomas.
He is also the author of a steelpan method for beginners published by the Hal Leonard Corporation and has created arrangements for Panorama -the most celebrated steelband competition in the world. Teague has many recordings to his credit including Hands Like Lightning, Open Window, and Sorcerer.
Jaden Teague-Núñez is 18 years old and was born in Panama City, Panama. The son of Trinidadian and Panamanian parents, he began studying steelpan and piano at age 8 and 10, respectively.
He became the first steelpan soloist in the world to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra after winning the CSO’s Crain-Maling Foundation Young Artists Competition in 2024. In 2025, he was named YoungArts Winner with Distinction (classical percussion) by the National Foundation for the Advancement of Artists. His work has been covered by Chicago’s WGN-Television and in several newspapers which include the Trinidad Newsday and The Guardian.
Jaden has guested with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Fox Valley Orchestra, Wheaton Municipal Band, and the Northern Illinois University Steelband, and he has performed for the Nassau Music Society in the Bahamas and the 50th anniversary of Crop Over in Barbados. Teague-Núñez has played at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention and at the 2023 Tuba Bach Festival and concertizes with his father Liam Teague as the duo TNTeague. He has also collaborated with virtuoso pianist Jodie Desalvo on her Piano Talks concert series. Jaden also practices mixed martial arts at United Elite MMA.
Stephen Prutsman has been described as one of the most innovative musicians of his time. Moving easily from classical to jazz to world music styles as a pianist and composer, Prutsman continues to explore and seek common ground and relationships in the music of all cultures and languages.
In the early 2000s Stephen was Artistic Partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, where he wrote several new works for the orchestra, led performances of other composers as a conductor and pianist, and developed the orchestra’s contemporary and world music series. Later he was the Artistic Director of the Cartagena International Festival of Music, South America’s largest festival of its kind, programming and curating concerts with themes ranging from Mozart celebrations, to eclectic evenings of folk and popular music of the Americas, to hybrid programs fusing art and dance music of multiple musical dimensions.
In the early 90’s he was a medal winner at the Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth Piano Competitions, and received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Since then Stephen has performed the classical concerto repertoire as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras and his classical discography includes acclaimed recordings of the Barber and McDowell concerti with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, recordings of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, and a solo jazz album entitled “Passengers”.
Born in Los Angeles, Stephen first began playing the piano by ear at age 3 before moving on to more formal music studies. In his teens and early 20s he was the keyboard player for several art rock groups including Cerberus and Vysion (and was a winner of television’s “The Gong Show”!) During those years, he worked regularly as a solo jazz pianist playing in many southern California clubs and lounges and was the music arranger for a nationally syndicated televangelist program.
As a composer, Stephen’s long collaboration with Grammy Award winning Kronos Quartet has resulted in over 40 arrangements and compositions for them. Other leading artists and ensembles who have performed Stephen’s compositions and arrangements include Leon Fleisher, Dawn Upshaw, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, Spoleto USA, and the Silk Road Project. In 2010, his song cycle “Piano Lessons” was premiered by Ms. Upshaw and Emanuel Ax at Carnegie Hall (New York), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Disney Hall (Los Angeles) and the Barbican Centre (London). As a pianist or arranger outside of the classical music world he has collaborated with such diverse personalities as Tom Waits, Rokia Traore, Jon Anderson of “YES”, Sigur Rós and Asha Bhosle. He has scored for a variety of ensembles 15 silent films from the 1920s which are regularly presented at various venues throughout the world.
He is a board member of several organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area promoting the well-being of people living with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and regularly produces and curates “Azure Concerts” musical performances tailored for individuals on the autism spectrum and their families. He was recently named Creative Director for Phenotypic Recordings, a new company specializing in recordings of contemporary music, and in January of 2023 Prutsman began a 2-year appointment as Visiting Artist at Stanford University.
