On No­vem­ber 24, the North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty (NIU) Steel­band re­turns to Boutell Con­cert Hall with its fall con­cert and there is a recital two days lat­er by NIU pan grad­u­ate stu­dent Mike Schwe­bke. Both con­certs will be We­b­cast and are free to pan fans around the world. The con­cert will be cel­e­brat­ing the re­cent in­duc­tion of co-di­rec­tor Cliff Alex­is in the Per­cus­sive Arts So­ci­ety Hall of Fame which oc­curred on No­vem­ber 14. For the fall 2013 con­cert, the NIU Steel­band will fea­ture the in­cred­i­bly tal­ent­ed An­dre White as their spe­cial guest artist. White is an ac­com­plished pan per­former and arranger who has led the ADLIB Steel Or­ches­tra to an un­prece­dent­ed num­ber of vic­to­ries at the Brook­lyn Car­ni­val. In ad­di­tion to club gigs in and around the East Coast, White per­formed this spring at the Vir­ginia Beach Pan Fes­ti­val with Adlib and arranged for the Man­grove steel­band in Lon­don as he has sev­er­al years. In Trinidad, he has arranged for Des­per­a­does and Tamana Pi­o­neeers. A grad­u­ate of the Berklee School of Mu­sic, White's re­cent ac­tiv­i­ty has been fo­cused on record­ing and work­ing on his ca­reer as a so­lo artist. White will be fea­tured on pan so­los with the NIU Steel­band and with a small jazz com­bo com­prised of NIU fac­ul­ty and stu­dents.

As usu­al, the NIU steel­band fall con­cert will fea­ture pro­gres­sive steel­band arrange­ments in a wide va­ri­ety of mu­si­cal styles. The pro­gram in­cludes Chick Corea's jazz clas­sic Spain arranged by NIU grad­u­ate stu­dent and An­tiguan Khan Cordice who this sum­mer won his sixth An­tigua Panora­ma as leader and arranger of the Brute Force steel­band.Two Amer­i­can pan com­posers are fea­tured as well. The band will per­form In The Groove of Things by pro­fes­sion­al pan­nist and co-cre­ator of Pan Rocks!, Tra­cy Thorn­ton. In The Groove of Things is one of Thorn­ton's most pop­u­lar com­po­si­tions from his band Sons of Steel.Chris Tan­ner's The Flip Side pairs a quar­tet of brass play­ers with steel­band. Tan­ner is the di­rec­tor of the steel­band pro­gramme at Mi­a­mi Uni­ver­si­ty of Ohio and was, along with his en­tire steel­band, a guest at the NIU Spring con­cert in 2010.The fall 2013 NIU steel­band con­cert will in­clud­ed long­time clas­si­cal fa­vorites such as Rim­sky Ko­r­sakov's The Flight of the Bum­ble Bee and the a well-known light clas­si­cal piece Fid­dle Fad­dle by Amer­i­can com­pos­er Leroy An­der­son. Fid­dle Fad­dle was a main­stay with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Or­ches­tra and, as the ti­tle sug­gests, the lis­ten­er may be used to hear­ing the vi­o­lins but in­stead will hear pan in this arrange­ment by NIU grad­u­ate stu­dent Yu­ki Nakano who is al­so a fea­tured soloist.

Yuko Asa­da has arranged the Japan­ese folk song, Saku­ra for the NIU steel­band. Sukara in Japan­ese means cher­ry blos­som and as Asa­da notes, "When I think of spring time in Japan, I pic­ture saku­ra. ..I miss see­ing rows of saku­ra trees." This piece was orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten for the small group Pas­tiche which fea­tured Asa­da and sev­er­al oth­er NIU steel­band mem­bers. This ver­sion is an arrange­ment for a larg­er steel­band.The con­cert will end with Mi­lap (Meet­ing) by the leg­endary Jit Sama­roo. The piece has an up-tem­po folk feel and was pop­u­larised by the Sama­roo Jets. The NIU steel­band will be joined in its per­for­mance of Mi­lap (Meet­ing) by guest artists TnT Sweet Tas­sa led by Lenny Ku­mar.As­so­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Steel­pan and co-di­rec­tor of the NIU steel­band Liam Teague was fa­mil­iar with TnT Sweet Tas­sa from their work to­geth­er at PA­SIC 2011. TnT Sweet Tas­sa band (www.sweet­tas­sa.com) will be per­form­ing with Dr Chris Bal­lengee, a mem­ber of the band, eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gist, and pro­fes­sor of mu­sic at Anne Arun­del Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege near Wash­ing­ton, DC. Bal­lengee and Sweet Tas­sa will give lec­tures/work­shops on No­vem­ber 21 and 22 at NIU in ad­di­tion to per­form­ing with the NIU steel­band at the fall con­cert on No­vem­ber 24.On No­vem­ber 26, NIU pan grad­u­ate stu­dent Mike Schwe­bke will per­form a recital that of­fers a num­ber of new works for pan. Schwe­bke is ex­plor­ing all of pan's pos­si­bil­i­ties. The recital re­flects this am­bi­tion and the pro­gramme will fea­ture an im­pres­sive ar­ray of works in­clud­ing two clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions by Bach and Bar­tok that Schwe­bke has arranged for pan. Nei­ther is a typ­i­cal piece for pan. The Bach Crab Canon has a fas­ci­nat­ing melod­ic theme struc­ture, a re­ver­sal and then both the theme and re­ver­sal played si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Schwe­bke fur­ther notes, "The Bar­tok is a pi­ano etude, adapt­ed for lead pan and dou­ble sec­onds, based loose­ly on some game­lan mu­sic."

Amaz­ing­ly, Schwe­bke has him­self com­mis­sioned oth­er mu­sic stu­dents at NIU to cre­ate new pieces for pan and his recital will fea­ture three new works. One is by Todd Je­linek who is a mem­ber of the NIU steel­band and a per­cus­sion­ist with a strong Mideast­ern mu­sic fo­cus. Schwe­bke com­mis­sioned Je­linek to write a quar­tet for steel­pan quar­tet and notes, the work is "very heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by Steve Re­ich, re­peat­ed pat­terns, very fo­cused sense of tonal­i­ty, stays in one key area, with lit­tle pitch changes here and there. I re­al­ly like it." The oth­er two new com­mis­sions are by NIU com­po­si­tion stu­dent Kyle Krause whose work has been fea­tured by the NIU New Mu­sic En­sem­ble among oth­ers. The first is a por­tion of a suite for so­lo pan that Krause wrote af­ter he and Schew­bke dis­cussed the na­ture of the pan and its in­her­ent ranges for com­po­si­tions. The recital will close with the oth­er Krause com­po­si­tion which is a ma­jor 15 minute suite for a small steel­band called "Air­ben­der". It in­cludes a sec­tion where Schwe­bke pours wa­ter in the lead pan to do pitch bend­ing. Each of the four move­ments is based on totemistic mag­i­cal pow­ers as­so­ci­at­ed with earth, wind, fire and wa­ter, clear­ly tak­ing pan in­to galax­ies it has nev­er gone be­fore.

�2 Ray Funk is a re­tired Alaskan judge who is pas­sion­ate­ly de­vot­ed to ca­lyp­so, pan and mas. An­drew Mar­tin is an eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gist, per­cus­sion­ist, pan­nist, and As­so­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Mu­sic at In­ver Hills Col­lege in St Paul, Min­neso­ta.

Lis­ten Free:Both of these pro­grams will be live we­b­cast on the NIU mu­sic net­work at tinyurl.com/bt3m24gThe NIU steel­band con­certs will be at 5 pm Trinidad time on No­vem­ber 24 and Schwe­bke's recital at 10 pm on No­vem­ber 26.