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Saturday, July 12, 2025

Jaden Teague-Nunez

Teen musician taking pan to the world

by

24 days ago
20250614

As we say in T&T, “it does not fall far from the tree”. True to form so it is with 17-year-old Jaden Teague-Nuñez, son of T&T’s not­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned pan­nist Liam Teague and Lore­na Nuñez, for­mer prin­ci­pal vi­o­list of the Pana­ma Na­tion­al Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra.

They are a fam­i­ly of mu­si­cians, as Jaden’s younger sis­ter Jei­da, 12, is a bud­ding pan­nist and pi­anist.

Ac­cord­ing to dad Liam, they en­joy re­fer­ring to their son as “Trin­i­man­ian” and “Panada­di­an” giv­en his par­ents’ roots.

Dad Liam is a pro­fes­sor of mu­sic and di­rec­tor of steel­pan stud­ies at North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty (NIU) where he al­so leads the renowned NIU Steel­band. He has been hailed the “Pa­gani­ni of the Steel­pan” who has tak­en the in­stru­ment to all cor­ners of the earth.

(www.niu.edu/mu­sic/fac­ul­ty/teague.shtml).

Born in Pana­ma and now liv­ing with his fam­i­ly in DeKalb, Illi­nois, where he at­tends DeKalb High School, Jaden made his­to­ry ear­ly in 2024 by be­com­ing the first pan play­er to win the Crain-Mail­ing Foun­da­tion Chica­go Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra Young Artists Com­pe­ti­tion.

His his­toric vic­to­ry fea­tured his per­for­mance of his fa­ther’s com­po­si­tion ‘Vis­it to Hell’ for steel­pan so­lo and or­ches­tra.

Ear­li­er this year, he was named a 2025 Youn­gArts win­ner with dis­tinc­tion in clas­si­cal/per­cus­sion by the Na­tion­al Foun­da­tion for the Ad­vance­ment of Artists.

As a win­ner Teague-Nuñez par­tic­i­pat­ed in an all-ex­pens­es paid Na­tion­al Youn­gArts Week from Jan­u­ary 5-12 ear­li­er this year in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da. He is al­so el­i­gi­ble to be nom­i­nat­ed as a US Pres­i­den­tial Schol­ar in the Arts, one of the high­est ho­n­ours giv­en to high-school se­niors as well as a va­ri­ety of sup­port from Youn­gArts, in­clud­ing ex­clu­sive cre­ative and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment sup­port, mi­cro-grants and fi­nan­cial awards and pre­sen­ta­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties with ma­jor venues and cul­tur­al part­ners in the US.

When and how did you get in­to play­ing and teach­ing the steel­pan?

On my sev­enth or eighth birth­day, my dad gave me my first pan. At first, I thought it was re­al­ly cool, as I saw him play­ing in such a vir­tu­osic fash­ion and I didn’t re­alise the years of hard work that he in­vest­ed. 

Was it some­thing you had to work hard at or did it come nat­u­ral­ly?

It was def­i­nite­ly some­thing I had to work hard at. How­ev­er, I be­lieve I had an ad­van­tage grow­ing up in a house­hold with two par­ents who are won­der­ful mu­si­cians, as they were able to guide me in many ways.

Who were the peo­ple who have in­flu­enced you the most in your ca­reer and in life in gen­er­al, and how did they?

My par­ents, Liam Teague and Lore­na Núñez, have most in­flu­enced me through­out my life. They have al­ways em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of ed­u­ca­tion and hav­ing a good char­ac­ter (be­ing a good per­son, hard­work­ing, etc). 

Who are your role mod­els/who in­spires you?

Any­one who has be­come suc­cess­ful de­spite com­ing from hum­ble cir­cum­stances. A com­mon char­ac­ter­is­tic for peo­ple that I look up to is their ded­i­ca­tion and work eth­ic, but es­pe­cial­ly when they are at a low point in their life and they feel to just give up, but in­stead, choose to keep work­ing and be­come suc­cess­ful. 

What are your favourite ca­lyp­so/so­ca songs?

For so­ca, any­thing by Machel Mon­tano, Bun­ji Gar­lin and De­stra Gar­cia, and in ca­lyp­so any­thing by Lord Kitch­en­er, David Rud­der and Ras Shorty I.

What are your hob­bies?

My favourite hob­bies are prac­tic­ing mixed mar­tial arts and I en­joy watch­ing foot­ball, bas­ket­ball, pro­fes­sion­al wrestling and mar­tial arts.

What are your goals and dreams in terms of your steel­pan tal­ent?

I plan to use my tal­ent to ed­u­cate peo­ple around the world about the many dif­fer­ent pos­si­bil­i­ties of the pan.

What dai­ly mot­to/cre­do do you live by—your recipe for suc­cess that you can share with your gen­er­a­tion?

One of them is “if oth­er peo­ple can do it, why can’t I?”. Ini­tial­ly, peo­ple you look up to seem like they’re su­per­hu­man and can do things no one else in the world can do. How­ev­er, one usu­al­ly sees the end re­sult and not the process.

An­oth­er one that I have is to re­ly more on ded­i­ca­tion rather than mo­ti­va­tion. Mo­ti­va­tion comes and goes and there are days where I don’t feel like prac­tic­ing or learn­ing, but I push my­self re­gard­less.

What are your most prized pos­ses­sions: one tan­gi­ble, one in­tan­gi­ble?

My in­stru­ments (pans, pi­ano, per­cus­sion) are the tan­gi­bles while the sup­port from all my loved ones will be the in­tan­gi­ble.

Of all your shows, con­certs, per­for­mances so far, which would you like a first-time au­di­ence, lis­ten­er or view­er to ex­pe­ri­ence?

One con­cert I would love for first-time view­ers of mine to see is the con­cert I did in Naples, Flori­da as part of Mrs Jodie De­Sal­vo’s “Pi­ano Talks” se­ries with her and my dad, Liam Teague. This per­for­mance fea­tured al­most every­thing that I had to of­fer in front of a sold-out crowd: clas­si­cal mu­sic on steel­pan, clas­si­cal and jazz pi­ano, and drum­set, as well as play­ing pi­ano du­os with Mrs De­Sal­vo.

Of all your ac­co­lades, prizes and awards which do you rate as ex­treme­ly spe­cial?

Two of my biggest ac­co­lades are win­ning the Chica­go Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra’s Crain-Ma­l­ing Foun­da­tion Young Artists Com­pe­ti­tion and the 2025 Youn­gArts Win­ner with Dis­tinc­tion in clas­si­cal/per­cus­sion by the Na­tion­al Foun­da­tion for the Ad­vance­ment of Artists (aka Youn­gArts). These were ex­treme­ly spe­cial for me be­cause I be­came the first ever pan play­er to au­di­tion and win these awards.

If you had to per­form for an au­di­ence who had nev­er heard or seen you be­fore and you had to per­form one song, which would you?

I would per­form Liam Teague’s “A Vis­it to Hell”. This rhap­sod­ic piece dis­plays var­i­ous emo­tions and con­trast­ing tech­niques, al­so al­low­ing me to con­vey the sto­ry in a dra­mat­ic fash­ion with my body move­ments and res­onates deeply with au­di­ences.

What is an in­ter­est­ing facet of your per­son­al­i­ty that most peo­ple do not know about you?

I have ac­tu­al­ly been prac­tic­ing mar­tial arts for ten years—this is longer than I have been a mu­si­cian. I ini­tial­ly want­ed to be a mar­tial artist and com­pete in the Ul­ti­mate Fight­ing Cham­pi­onship (the pre­mière mixed mar­tial arts or­gan­i­sa­tion). How­ev­er, look­ing at the short and dam­ag­ing ca­reers most fight­ers have had, I made the “tough” de­ci­sion of stick­ing with mu­sic.

What is the best com­pli­ment you have ever re­ceived?

It warms my heart when peo­ple tell me how far they have trav­elled to hear me. I find it very fas­ci­nat­ing that my play­ing can af­fect peo­ple in such an im­pact­ful man­ner.

What are your plans for the rest of 2025?

Every year, my pri­or­i­ty is to be bet­ter than I was the pre­vi­ous year. That in­cludes mu­sic, health and grow­ing as a per­son. I al­so have sev­er­al up­com­ing con­certs and record­ing ses­sions, in­clud­ing a per­for­mance of Kevin Bobo’s “Rhap­sody in Steel” with the Wheaton Mu­nic­i­pal Band, record­ing with the Pan Chro­mat­ic Steel­band in Madi­son, Wis­con­sin; and with 15-year-old vi­o­lin vir­tu­oso Neal Eis­feldt on Jan Bach’s “Bach Talk” for steel­pan and vi­o­lin.

How can read­ers find out more about you and keep up to date with your lat­est news?

Web­site: jaden­teague­nunez.com; In­sta­gram: jaden­teague­nunez; Face­Book: jaden­teague­nunez; YouTube: jaden­teague­nunez

De­scribe your­self in two words; one be­gin­ning with J, the oth­ers with T and, your ini­tials? (When I in­ter­viewed your dad back in 2014 he gave Lov­ing and Thank­ful as his an­swers!)

Joy­ful, Thank­ful, Nat­ur­al.


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