T&T's and North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty's (NIU) Cliff Alex­is, steel­pan builder and tuner, and co-di­rec­tor of the world-renowned NIU Steel Band, is among four promi­nent per­cus­sion­ists cho­sen for in­duc­tion to the Per­cus­sive Arts So­ci­ety Hall of Fame.

The in­duc­tion of the quar­tet, all im­por­tant fig­ures who have shaped the per­cus­sion world through their in­no­va­tions, per­for­mances and schol­ar­ly work, takes place on No­vem­ber 14, dur­ing the 39th an­nu­al Per­cus­sive Arts So­ci­ety In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion at the In­di­anapo­lis Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, USA.

Oth­er 2013 in­ductees are Harold Jones, Gary Olm­stead and Sal­va­tore Rab­bio.

Alex­is is in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised with­in the steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty for his gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tions as a per­former, com­pos­er, arranger, tuner, builder and ed­u­ca­tor.

He has been play­ing in var­i­ous steel­bands since age 14, Alex­is has per­formed all over the world for such lu­mi­nar­ies as Queen Eliz­a­beth II, the Em­per­or of Ethiopia Haile Se­lassie and Pres­i­dent Sen­g­hor of Sene­gal.

One of the first mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Steel Or­ches­tra of T&T in 1964, he moved to the US in 1965 and be­came an im­por­tant ed­u­ca­tor and clin­i­cian. Em­ployed at the NIU School of Mu­sic since 1986, Alex­is is equal­ly re­gard­ed for his per­for­mance, teach­ing, com­pos­ing and ar­rang­ing skills on the in­stru­ment of his home­land.

Alex­is has ap­peared with sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ty en­sem­bles and played and pre­sent­ed at El­gin Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, the Birch Creek Mu­sic Cen­ter, the Sin­ga­pore Fes­ti­val of the Arts and the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of the Arts in Tai­wan. He won the T&T Folk Arts In­sti­tute Award for his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment and ed­u­ca­tion of the steel­pan in the US. Pan Trin­ba­go and the Gov­ern­ment of T&T be­stowed sim­i­lar recog­ni­tion for ex­pand­ing the pan's glob­al reach.

Alex­is is al­so an in­ductee in the New York-based Sun­shine Awards Hall of Fame. In 2009, he won an Out­stand­ing Ser­vice Award from the NIU Op­er­at­ing Staff Coun­cil.

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