BY VALERIE HARDY | Photos courtesy of Brayer Teague
For District 99 students, school will soon be out for the summer, but for Downers Grove North High School’s longtime band director and fine arts department chairman Brayer Teague, school is about to be out forever. Teague is set to retire at the end of the academic year, culminating his 33-year career.
“I caught the teaching bug really early, before I even thought of myself as a musician,” Teague said. This was hardly surprising: his father taught at a college in their hometown of Columbia, Missouri, and his mother was also a teacher.
Though neither of his parents was involved in music, as a fifth grader, Teague started playing percussion in his school band, and he was hooked. By high school, he was also in a garage band. He enjoyed playing rock ‘n’ roll (his band covered many Led Zeppelin songs) as well as creating classical music.
Teague enrolled at Northwestern University, and finding “music and teaching to be a really natural marriage,” he dedicated his studies to the field of music education. After graduating, he landed a teaching job at Elm Place Middle School in Highland Park. “I knew I wanted to ultimately teach at the high school level,” Teague said, “but teaching beginners was a really great opportunity to hone my skills…”
The three years he spent teaching middle school made him a better high school teacher for the three decades that followed, he said. For Teague, one of the greatest benefits of teaching high school music, particularly as a band director, has been having “the good fortune of working with a student for several consecutive years” and witnessing the significant growth that ensues.
See related story: A Musical Mentor: Band alumni weigh in on how Teague’s teaching inspired them to pursue careers in music education
Teague feels privileged that the vast majority of his career has taken place in Downers Grove. Initially drawn to the community “because of the reputation of the music and fine arts programs in our schools,” when hired in 1993, Teague was only the third band director since the program began in 1929. “That’s a testament to our schools and the support this community has for arts education,” he said.
Teague is a major advocate of arts education himself. As fine arts department chair, he contributed to two different master facility plans, yielding state of the art renovations to music and visual art classrooms and performance art spaces in District 99.
Living near the halfway point of Downers Grove’s annual Thanksgiving Day 5K race route, Teague and his family set up a gong – along with a DGN and DGS logo-adorned sign that read, “Bang a gong if you support the arts” – and blared the song “Bang a Gong” as race participants went by. “We just wanted to draw attention and advocacy to arts education,” Teague said.
Teague also keeps the spotlight on arts education through various publications. “Brayer’s passion for and excellence in the use of technology is unmatched, including the use of blogs and [other electronic media] to communicate student and staff successes,” explained Glenn Williams, the recently retired fine arts chairman at Downers Grove South High School.
Williams also highlighted Teague’s advocacy for inclusivity in music education. Teague served on the Illinois Music Education Association’s board for 12 years, and he moved the association “towards inclusive thinking, hosting panel discussions on diversity and equity well before others were thinking about those things,” Williams said.
While Teague’s advocacy for arts education has been far reaching, he has also dedicated himself to supporting his individual students. Both of these qualities likely contributed to him being named a Grammy Music Educator of the Year National Finalist a few years ago.
“He does not see his role as a teacher ending once students graduate and go out into the ‘real world.’”
– Chris Dortwegt, former student
Teague estimates that he has taught upwards of 2,000 band students at North High School, and his students are grateful to have had him as a teacher. Bryce Bowlin, a 2004 DGN graduate, is currently a professional musician in the United States Navy Band. Bowlin remembers Teague frequently encouraging students to become “lifelong learners” and to recognize that what they were learning “would bear fruit in all aspects of our lives, not just in playing the right notes at the right time.” Teague’s teachings have had “a sincere and profound impact on how I live my life,” Bowlin said.
Self-proclaimed “band-o” Kelly Miller graduated from DGN in 1998 and now works as a high school band director, due in large part to Teague’s support. She struggled with auditions and solo performances while in high school, but “Brayer was a constant source of encouragement,” she said. “He pushed me to achieve great successes musically…far beyond what I thought I was capable of.”
Teague believes wholeheartedly in his students’ talents and strives to provide them with opportunities to “authentically share their gift of music with audiences around the world.” He has led more than 20 student music tours throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States. North High choir director Frank Piekarz, who has often traveled with Teague over the past 27 years, said, “Brayer’s philosophy about student travel encompasses musical, historical, cultural, and social goals, and is one of the many ways in which our music programs stand out from many other successful programs.”
Carolyn Cansler, a 1995 graduate and the first student drum major Teague worked with at North, fondly remembers a band trip to Minneapolis, especially having the opportunity to work with a music professor and visiting the “then-fairly-new Mall of America.” Cansler, now a school band director in Texas, said, “These opportunities were afforded to us because Brayer wanted to advance the band program and allow us, as students, more experiences.”
Besides “expanding the walls of the traditional arts classroom through music performance tours,” something Teague highly values, he will leave his mark on North High’s band program in many other ways. For example, he was instrumental in creating the program’s “big sibling” structure for onboarding new students.
He also started the annual Mosaic Concert: a collage concert of approximately 35 holiday pieces, performed by various DGN music groups in rapid succession. The Mosaic Concert is a community-favorite band event, but Teague’s most publicly recognized contributions are likely the ones that take place under the Friday night lights. Early in his career at North, Teague, along with then head football coach Pete Ventrelli, forged a unique symbiotic relationship between the marching band and football team. After each game, the football team “would stick around to listen to the band play the alma mater,” Teague explained. “The team would raise their helmets, the band would say, ‘We love our team,’ and the football players would parrot back, ‘We love our band.’”
Teague said that the “Pleasantville, Pollyanna” tradition between the football team and marching band continues. Another custom of which Teague is proud is the band playing the visiting team’s fight song during their pregame show. He learned this practice from the Northwestern University marching band and viewed it as “good sportsmanship.”
Teague also began coordinating an alumni band to be part of the marching band’s homecoming performance about 20 years ago. It started small but grew to an average of 75-80 alumni coming back. “This year was off the charts – about 150 alumni – because it was my last year,” Teague said. That has been really, really fun!”
Chris Dortwegt, a drum major from the Class of 2003, attended this year’s homecoming game with his wife (also a DGN band alum) and their children. “Seeing so many return to DGN to celebrate all that band meant to them was inspiring and speaks volumes about the impact Mr. Teague has had on so many lives…” he said. “It is obvious that he does not see his role as a teacher ending once students graduate and go out into the ‘real world.’”
Photo by Jill Stocki
On April 29, alumni band members from graduating classes spanning four decades joined current band students and local musicians who are “friends of the DGN Bands” for a special concert Teague’s colleagues planned to celebrate his retirement. They invited him to select several pieces of music that were important to him and then conduct the concert.
While Teague is stepping down from the North High conductor’s podium come May 25, he hopes to “stay tangentially involved in music education.” He would like to do consulting work for companies specializing in educational travel for music ensembles, and he plans to travel with his family – wife Kristen, son Miles, and daughter Emery (both former DGN band students) – and experience “new locations without simultaneously being responsible for 200 students!” he said. “The opportunity to do more personal playing would be enjoyable too.”
