Remembering Dr. William Chandler Teague
Dr. William Chandler Teague, emeritus professor of music at Centenary and a legendary figure in the local music community, passed away on June 27, 2020, at the age of 97. His death in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic robbed many admirers and former colleagues and students of the opportunity to gather to reminisce about and honor this influential teacher and gifted musician whose local and international career spanned practically his entire long life. His incredible versatility, dedication, and passion for his art represent vital threads in the story of music education and performance at Centenary and in our wider community.
Teague was born July 8, 1922 in Gainesville, Texas. His first music instructor was his mother, and by the age of 12 he was serving as the organist for a large Methodist church. Teague would continue his career as a church musician in some form or fashion for most of the rest of his life. Another monumental event that occurred in his twelfth year was meeting his future wife, Lucille Ridinger Teague, at a Methodist church camp. Throughout his teens, Teague trained as an organist in Dallas with Dr. Carl Wiesemann and later as a scholarship student with Dora Poteet Barclay at Southern Methodist University, after having entered the university at the age of 16. While at SMU, Teague attracted the attention of legendary organist and music educator Alexander McCurdy at the Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia. After winning a scholarship to study with McCurdy at Curtis, Teague left Texas for Pennsylvania. Following a detour into the Army Air Force as a chaplain’s assistant during World War II, Teague, now joined by Lucille, returned to Curtis and soaked up McCurdy’s instruction while continuing his church music career at the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and launching his career as a music educator at the Episcopal Academy in Overbrook, Pennsylvania, where he taught piano, organ, and theory.
Teague’s Shreveport story began in 1948, when he was named organist and choirmaster at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church as well as an instructor in the organ and sacred music departments at Centenary College. He and Lucille sunk deep roots in the community, and he would hold both appointments for at least 40 years. In addition to training generations of Centenary students and directing choristers at St. Mark’s, Teague was one of the founders of The Baroque Artists of Shreveport and The Great Masterpiece Series at St. Mark’s. His obituary in The Shreveport Times noted that he also touched the local community in a much more personal and intimate way, playing for hundreds of weddings, funerals, and festivals.
Teague shared his talents with not just Centenary and Shreveport, but the world. In between teaching and directing, he maintained an active domestic and international concert career, playing in some of the world’s most recognizable venues: Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Westminster Abbey in London, St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, and the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Other tours and appearances took Teague to Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and North Africa, accompanied by Lucille as his trusted page-turner and stop-puller. Teague’s obituary estimated that she had turned “thousands” of pages of organ repertoire during her husband’s performing career, including at a concert in Germany where a local press review reported, “It was a joy to find this American organist a highly qualified Bach interpreter, and with what taste and sensitivity he chose the proper registrations.” Teague’s international performing career made him an invaluable ambassador for Shreveport and Centenary College. It also placed him and Lucille at the center of one of the most dramatic events of the late 20th century, as they were reportedly at the Berlin Wall when crowds first began the effort to dismantle it.
Given these experiences, there was perhaps no better team than the Teagues to chaperone “America’s Singing Ambassadors,” the Centenary College Choir, on many decades of international tours. Teague served as an accompanist for the Choir in many memorable settings, including a tour to China that was one of the very first cultural missions allowed in the country. Dr. Lee Morgan, emeritus professor of English at Centenary, and his late wife, Lucy Strain Morgan, also served as chaperones on many Choir tours. Morgan remembers the Teagues as “delightful travelling companions” and recalled a particularly eventful New Year’s Eve in Moscow when the four of them rang in the new year by dancing until 4:00 a.m.! “My wife and the Teagues were excellent dancers,” shared Morgan. “My talent lay elsewhere; but I tried heroically.”
Teague’s extensive travels and deep associations within multiple networks – church music, academia, and the professional concert world – meant that he and Lucille could seldom go anywhere without running into some sort of acquaintance, be it a fellow organist, a former student, a choir member, or a traveling companion. An apparent joke in the organ world, relayed in Teague’s obituary, was that wherever on the globe he and Lucille might find themselves, someone who knew them would inevitably walk around a corner and exclaim, “Good heavens, there’s Uncle Billy!” This nickname bestowed upon Teague by his organ colleagues is imbued with affection and gestures toward decades of mentorship that ensured that his legacy would endure long after he was no longer actively performing, directing, or teaching.
Lucille Teague passed away in August 2019, preceding her husband by a little more than a year. Today, the Teague Music Scholarship Fund at Centenary College honors their memory and helps to support students at the College’s Hurley School of Music. Centenary and Shreveport are both fortunate that Dr. William Chandler Teague, whose talents were in demand all over the world, chose these places as the center of his life’s work.