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Woman of Steel: Deborah Teason's Arrangements Get Panned

Hank Hoffman

Deborah Fischer Teason.

Composer/arranger Deborah Fischer Teason was trained in the Western European classical music tradition, where individual virtuosity holds sway. But for Teason, music is a communal experience. She found her calling amid a world music culture rooted in the innovations of the African diaspora.

Teason directs and arranges for four steelband programs in Connecticut. She is musical director of the Neighborhood Music School steelband program in New Haven, the Highville Charter School steelband in Hamden and Pan Jam & Lime at Yale University. The most professional ensemble she works with is St. Luke's Steel Band, affiliated with St. Luke's Episcopal Church in New Haven. St. Luke's Steel Band, recipient of a 2003 Arts Awards from the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, is a nationally competitive, community-based steelband, comprised of young people and steelband veterans.

Teason's enthusiasm for music began in early childhood, first as a singer in the church choir. Then she took up the cello in elementary school. Teason chose this particular instrument, she says, because it "was bigger than me." She played cello into her college years and taught herself piano and guitar, as well. She started writing songs—and composing was a natural next step. And when she found herself skipping nursing classes (a “practical” major) to produce musical theater pieces, she switched her major to composition.

"All my notions of what it meant to be a composer came from biographies of Bach and Beethoven. I knew if I was going to be a composer, I would have to get up at five in the morning and my father would beat me with a stick," Teason tells me, laughing, in an interview at her Hamden home. "It turned out I loved it so much, that getting up at three o'clock, two o'clock in the morning was fine once I was really into it.

As a composer, Teason has been solidly commissioned for over two decades. She has written works for chamber ensembles, choruses and orchestras. Among creative people, Teason believes some are "seminal"—the trailblazers who do things never done before—and others are "synthesists." Synthesists "take what has been done before... and take it to a new level through the quality of their craft." She sees herself more as a synthesist. Her work is enriched by a broadened exposure to musical influences.

When I ask about influences on her composing style, her first response is to cite a negative example. Though she was trained at the height of "serialism" in the early 1970's, she never liked the movements’ haute academicism. She remembers sitting down with a string quartet recording and making a serious effort to enjoy it. She listened to it ten times with the belief that "if it's just familiar I will really start to like it. I never did."

"I was never attracted to harsh ugly dissonance, which isn't to say I don't use dissonance," says Teason. "Through that period, I really rebelled against music as an art form separate from life. Isn't this about saying something and having a connection with the audience and with my performers?" The "extraordinary beauty" of Stephen Sondheim's work had a "huge impact" on Teason. Having "always waffled between the classical and pop worlds," she is still baffled as to why they remain so segregated.

Then in the 1980’s, Teason began playing in a New Haven gamelan ensemble. It completely changed the way she viewed music. “It was my first really intensive non-Western musical experience"—a turning point in both her creative and personal life. An ensemble musical form, gamelan originated in Indonesia. The groups are community-based and often include a variety of percussion instruments, such as xylophones, drums and gongs, as well as bamboo flutes and the occasional vocalist. The music is generally learned by rote rather than notation, placing it within the oral tradition.

"It was the first time I thought about music as consensus—that everyone has the same vision of it—and also when I started thinking of music as a communal experience," says Teason. Her involvement with the gamelan also changed her concept of time. Asian music tends toward a circular concept of time, where time in Western music is linear. "I started looking at time in my life a lot differently." In that same period, Teason's first husband, who also played in the gamelan, died suddenly. She found herself questioning whether she could afford to continue as a composer, as it was not an easy way to make a living.

Newly inspired and challenged by her immersion in world music—and now having to concentrate on making a living following her husband's death—Teason got her first job as a music teacher. Cold Spring School, a progressive private school in New Haven, was "a fabulous place to be thrown in and figure out how to teach," Teason recalls. She is no longer at Cold Spring School, but has continued in musical education, a choice consistent with her ethos that art should have a social dimension.

With both her arrangements and compositions, Teason tries to balance the strengths of the trained and untrained. Where professionals bring a quality of play and rigor to a composition, amateurs contribute enthusiasm. For several years, Teason collaborated with inner city Bridgeport students in writing choral works. The pieces were then performed by the Greater Bridgeport Symphony. After the concerts, Teason says, "the musicians would just be in awe of those kids and what they accomplished." For their part, the students had the benefit of being onstage and working with "the discipline and power manifested by a symphony orchestra."

In the case of St. Luke's Steel Band, most of the young players can read music. The older players often can’t, as they were raised within the steel pan tradition—but it’s a controversial subject in Trinidad. “It’s much more efficient to read music,” Teason says, but people who play by ear have “such consensus vision" because "they're only hearing the music and not reading."

Having students on both end of the spectrum necessitates different teaching styles on Teason's part. "I've learned a lot about teaching and learning by rote and how it changes the music,” Teason says. “When you're not reading music, your senses aren't divided. You're playing much more with your ears in control of the experience.”

Teason first encountered steel pan music 15 years ago at Wesleyan University when she went to see a graduate student steelband with a friend.

"They had some open pans, and, heck, I read music," Teason recalls. "It was a total love affair from then on." She played with the Wesleyan steelband for two years.

The timbre of the pans is part of the appeal. But perhaps more than that, Teason is moved by "the soul of the people who invented the pans and the conditions in which they were created, the extraordinary creativity of it." Steelband music arose out of the struggle of Africans in the Caribbean—and particularly in Trinidad—to push against white cultural and political oppression. With drumming banned in Trinidad, the Africans sought out unique materials for percussion ensembles, including lengths of bamboo and scrap metal. It wasn't until the end of the 1940's that the steel pan—improvised out of 55-gallon oil drums—became the basis for a new musical form.

Steelband music is now a worldwide phenomenon. The sound of pans is increasingly being heard in hip hop and r&b—even classical music. Teason's own "Cadences" for solo steel pan and string quartet, was premiered in 2006 in Chicago by renowned Trinidadian pannist Liam Teague and the Vermeer Quarter.

"To go to Trinidad and go to a panyard and stand in the middle of rehearsal and have 100 people playing pans—none of them read music, they have all learned this extraordinary virtuosic piece by rote—and they are playing like one person, it's cosmic," says Teason.

Teason has directed and arranged for St. Luke's Steel Band since 1999 when the ensemble purchased its set of used pans from a Brooklyn band. Their repertoire includes sacred and secular music—Teason has written soca, calypso, reggae and Latin music arrangements—and they perform regularly during services at St. Luke's Episcopal Church.

Creating these arrangements, Teason gets to transcend the limits of her early musical education. "I get to play 'Oye Como Va!'" she exults. "When I arrange things, I get to enter music from a very different point of view than I did before. It's a different face, but I get the same kind of satisfaction. And I get to dance a lot!"

Children on the inside

Colleen Shaddox

	"Pain from the past doesn't go away, No. 4," by Tucker.

Jagged lines of color cut across fields of black and blue in “Pain from the past doesn’t go away, No. 4.” Tucker’s pain series is long. He painted this one at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School—Connecticut's only secure residential treatment facility for adjudicated male juvenile offenders—where he spends every minute he can in the art therapy room. He is still waiting for his case to be adjudicated. He could be back at home tomorrow. Or he might get released in time to go to the prom. Or he might spend his high school career “inside.” At 17, he already uses prison parlance. But he is still a kid. That’s most apparent when he has a paintbrush in his hand. In the art room, it is perfectly fine to be spontaneous, to express your deepest feelings and even to play.

Tucker will be one of the artists featured in “Who I Am on the Inside,” an exhibition of works by young people in the state’s juvenile justice system. The exhibit will be in the Small Space Gallery at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, 70 Audubon Street, from January 20 to March 13.

Tucker says that his participation in the show makes him “encouraged to do more, gather more skills.” He’s working with his art therapists to get together a portfolio so that he can apply to art school. He is interested in a graphic design career.

Julie Nearing and Marta Cunha, art therapists at the training school, say that it is wonderful to watch someone like Tucker develop his talents. But it is equally gratifying to see kids with no particular aptitude find a refuge and a coping skill in the art room.

“It’s not really about whether you are doing good art–whatever that means–but: How do you feel when you get out?” says Cunha.

“These are kids, so we do want to create some success for them,” says Nearing. That might mean helping a boy with tremors learn some techniques to manipulate a paint brush. Or it might mean introducing a kid with little art exposure to a friendly medium like collage. “It’s really about taking each artist as an individual. It’s really about building self-confidence and self-image and being a strong individual,” she says.

Some kids discover talents they did not know they had. That is particularly gratifying, says Nearing. One youth began sketching complex line drawings in his cell, she recalls. (One of his striking designs is in the exhibit.) They were so beautiful, that staffers asked for copies so that they could have the sketches made into tattoos. Many of those drawings were not done in the art room, but in the youth’s cell. Nearing and Cunha often provide the boys with sketchbooks so they can “draw out” troubling emotions around the clock.

“It’s unbelievable to see kids that have had the histories that they’ve had … to see their faces when they are exposed to something completely new,” says Cunha. “It can be heartbreaking. But other times, it’s fun.”

Art therapy is completely distinct from the art classes the boys may take as part of their academics. The art therapy room is open three-hours-a-day after school. During that time there may be clinics in a particular medium, and Nearing and Cunha will offer as much one-on-one help as a student wants. But the young artists are almost always free to work on something of their own choice. Often the works represent their nightmares. Giving them freedom to work in a self-directed way is important in an environment where so much of their day is strictly scheduled. “They can own their art,” says Nearing. Some come to the art room because their clinician has referred them there. Many, like Tucker, come because they want to.

“We don’t have to redirect kids to do this, that or the other thing,” says Cunha. We encourage kids to be silly.”

There are some organized projects, however, that the pair offers. These include a soap box derby where teammates design and build cars for a race in the parking lot. It’s a long process that includes the creation of team t-shirts and a silk screening lesson. Tucker’s team took first place in car design.

Tucker did not have art classes at his local high school. “I was really artistic when I was on the outside, but I never had anywhere to do it,” he says. This is common, says Nearing. Art is always among the first things cut in a school budget, she explains, and many of these teens come from communities where schools operate on little in the first place. Others come in with truancy problems and were not attending school at all.

Tucker says that he does not plan on coming back to the Connecticut Juvenile Training School once he is released. But he hopes to keep developing the skills that he’s picked up in the art therapy room. He talks about doing a mural on “an artist’s life.” Asked what an artist’s life is like, he says, “chaotic.”

“Chaotic is a good word to describe the lives of the artists in this exhibit,” says Abby Anderson, executive director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance. The advocacy group organized the exhibit along with the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven is sponsoring the event.

One beautiful landscape in the show is titled, “I wonder what my life would be like if I lived here.” Anderson says she wonders along with the artist. “When you look at the subject matter these young artists have addressed—things like witnessing violence and losing parents—you have to ask if we as a community are doing enough to help kids and families succeed.”

While Anderson says that it is important to hold young people who break the law accountable, a system that emphasizes education and counseling is better for kids and for the communities to which they’ll eventually return. Even better, she said, would be giving these young people the supports that would keep them out of the juvenile justice system in the first place.

The goal of the project is to break down stereotypes, says Anderson. “Most young people involved in the juvenile justice system are there for relatively minor, non-violent offenses,” says Anderson. “But there is sometimes a public perception that these are dangerous people who must be treated as harshly as possible. Ironically, all the research says that approach just encourages recidivism.”

Young artists from Touchstone and GRACE A.D.P, of Hartford, and FSW, of Bridgeport, will also contribute work to the show. Anderson says that she hopes to bring the artwork to other venues around the state. “These kids have a compelling story to tell,” she says, “and nothing tells it more eloquently than their own work.”

In the Art of Downtown

Lucile Bruce

The new Cooperative Arts and Humanities Magnet High School, slated to open in downtown New Haven on January 20. Photo by Harold Shapiro.

Ask the seniors at Cooperative Arts and Humanities Magnet High School what they’re most looking forward to about their new school, and they won’t necessarily name the 350-seat state-of-the-art theater, the screening room, or the soundproof music studios with recording and playback capabilities. As these students prepare to walk through different doors on January 20, their new school home—located in the heart of downtown New Haven, on College Street between Crown and George—is still somewhere between a rumor and a dream.

“When we see some new pipes,” exclaims senior Henry Green, a theater major, “we will pray over them.”

In their old school building on Orange Street, these students endured broken pipes dripping with sludge, leaking roofs, and extreme temperatures. String players practiced in what was once a custodial closet. Sociology students heard loud vocalizations—screams, animal sounds—coming from the theater room next door.

No more. With a brand new building designed by world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli, the students, teachers, and administrators of Coop High School are on the brink of major change.

“This is no ordinary high school,” says Mr. Pelli. “This is a building planned for the arts and dedicated to art. It will feel like the arts in a very demonstrable way.”

Mr. Pelli’s passion for the creative life is evident throughout the building. On the corner of College and Crown Streets, the school’s most prominent dance studio is visible through glass windows that soar above the theater’s main entrance. Down the block, patinaed copper leaf windows reference the printmaking, painting and drawing studios inside. In designing these windows, Mr. Pelli, who has long been interested in the “skin” of buildings, took photographs of New Haven trees (elm trees on the Green; oaks and maples in East Rock Park). His images were then blown up, pixilated, and silkscreened onto insulated glass panels. Inside, these dramatic windows let in light while reducing solar gain, contributing to the building’s energy efficiency.

With its human scale and thoughtful design, the interior fosters a feeling of connectedness and intimacy. In the old Coop location, students walked to rented spaces in the Audubon Street Arts District for classes and rehearsals. Theater students performed at Lyman Auditorium at SCSU; chorus performances were held at churches on the Green. Students in different disciplines felt disconnected from each other. “We’d say, where are you guys going, and what do you do?,” jokes senior Henry Green. In the new school, everything will take place under one roof, giving the students much greater exposure to each other’s work and a deeper sense of unity.

“The top landing of the staircase is a great place to stop and chat,” says Cesar Pelli. He’s referring to the spacious central staircase that leads from the student entrance in the rear of the building, to the studios, classrooms, and library upstairs. “Staircases are wonderful places for people to run into each other,” Pelli continues. “You say, ‘Hey, I was just thinking of you, let’s share some ideas, let’s get a cup of coffee after school!’ Those interactions, especially if you are involved in the arts, are very, very important.”

Mr. Pelli’s firm, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, worked with theatrical and acoustical consultants to make sure the school’s design met the highest professional standards. The main theater has a full fly-loft, tension wire grid, orchestra pit, dressing rooms, sophisticated lighting, sound, and video infrastructure, and a scene shop, with loading dock, for creating sets. (The Coop theater department will be able to offer courses in scenic design for the first time.) In addition, the school includes a ceramics studio, a photography darkroom, a video production room, a score library, creative writing rooms, a gymnasium, and much more.

Planning for the new school began in 2002. After a long and challenging site selection process, the College Street location was chosen. During the design phase, architects met repeatedly with Coop faculty and administrators to ensure that the new building would support the school’s programmatic intentions. Compromises and sacrifices were made along the way, and construction finally began in 2006.

Cesar Pelli credits Mayor John DeStefano with the decision to locate the school in downtown New Haven. “I think it was a very intelligent decision to place the school downtown, within short walking distance of Yale and other institutions,” he says. “It will be a fantastic location, a wonderful thing for the students and the city.” As they work and study, says Mr. Pelli, “the students will be aware all the time that they are in the center of New Haven.” Mr. Pelli’s own office is located in downtown New Haven, only a few blocks from the new Coop building.

School principal Dr. Dolores Garcia-Blocker looks forward to forging connections with businesses and institutions downtown. “As much as we can integrate our young people in a positive way with what’s going on downtown—in terms of work, educational, and cultural experiences—the better,” says Dr. Garcia-Blocker, who admits that the public’s reaction to having 650 high school students downtown has been mixed.

From the beginning, the new Coop was envisioned, in part, as an arts resource for the community. The main entrance at College and Crown Streets leads visitors directly to the main theater, black box theater, and screening room/lecture hall—this corner of the building can be secured separately from the rest of the school. There is a need in New Haven for accessible performance spaces of the size and specifications of the main theater, which makes Coop an exciting new option for professional presenters and grassroots performers alike.

“It’s a school first,” cautions Dr. Garcia-Blocker, who emphasizes that the students will have priority. Currently, Coop is not considering requests to rent the space. “We need to get in, use the spaces ourselves, and learn the inner workings,” says Dr. Garcia-Blocker, who adds that the school will not have immediate access to the theater while construction work continues during the winter months.

Keith Cunningham, director of the school’s arts program, has already received many inquiries about the performance spaces. “I’ve basically told everyone that we’re phasing it in,” he says. “There’s only so much we can tell people now, because we don’t know ourselves how things are going to be.” Recognizing that the new building will require considerable time and expertise to oversee, Dr. Garcia-Blocker has requested that the school district create a new full-time building manager position.

The Coop seniors are delighted to see their school become a more prominent member of the local arts community. Says Paul Hudson, a chorus major, “I’m looking forward to sharing our art and our love of art with the community. We have a really extensive art program here, but we haven’t had the proper tools. Now it’s going to be seen as an actual art venue, not just a high school.”

Art major Alexandria Simmons expects that student pride and self-respect will increase in the new building. “When I see the dirty walls and messy rooms, it doesn’t encourage me,” she explains. “I think we’re going to feel better working in the new building.”

Of course, as Mr. Pelli notes, “The building by itself won’t do it. But the building creates the potential to teach art at the highest level. It offers the potential for students to become immersed in the arts. If you are devoted to the arts, this is something that consumes your whole life,” he reflects. “I would have loved to have a high school like that.”

Right now, for the school community, it’s all about unpacking boxes, learning new equipment, and figuring out new routines. There are feelings of trepidation, excitement, nervousness, confusion. There’s also the pressure of high expectations. Come springtime, when the lights go up on the first performances in their stunning new theater, the students, faculty, staff, and administrators of Coop High School will be well on their way to settling into their new home.

“I hope they love the building,” says Cesar Pelli. “I hope the building helps all of them to encounter what they are seeking. I hope many great artists will be formed in this building. I am anxious to see it open,” he laughs, “and when it does, I will go there very quietly and watch.”

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