Director Changes

[Fata1]

  ftwdrummer said:

How is breaking in an entirely new-to-the-program group of band directors in a state year our (Arabella's and my) senior year going to be positive? I know that sounds really pessimistic...but really, find me some good in that.

Wow. I'm really sorry. I feel bad because we got your percussion director.

 

As far as making this year as good as possible for you all, you'll just have to take lead. The officers and upperclassmen in your band just need to make sure things get done whether your new directors are good or bad. Who knows, maybe the new directors will be easy to adjust to. Good luck to you all. You have a great band program and I'm sure things will work out.

[Arabella]

  Fata1 said:

Wow. I'm really sorry. I feel bad because we got your percussion director.

 

As far as making this year as good as possible for you all, you'll just have to take lead. The officers and upperclassmen in your band just need to make sure things get done whether your new directors are good or bad. Who knows, maybe the new directors will be easy to adjust to. Good luck to you all. You have a great band program and I'm sure things will work out.

 

Thank you so much for the kind words. Good luck with Mr. Hix, he's a character!

[Arabella]

  lhsfluter said:

I'm in the terms of the long run. Yeah it would SUCK to have that happen your senior year when you want it to be your best year. I was meaning that to be that if you sit there and tell yourself the year is going to suck then it will. But eventually you can get past that and make the best of what could have been a really sucky year.

 

I know what you mean, and thank you very much for the advice!

[the terminator]

at least u guys aren't experiencing what Frisco High is going through, for these seniors they'll have a new head and assistant director every year of they're high school band experience. Some have already quit, and some others might quit as well. It's really tough for them.

 

Also, I'm really sorry about that, but yeah no matter who u get I'm sure they'll do their best to make u guys the best u can be

[sax5warrior]

Allen HS had their asst. director promoted to Head Band Director...(Mr. Charles Pennington..I think)

 

McKinney HS had a Head Band Director opening and that has been filled with Mr. Ken Ringel

 

Birdville HS, (although not released yet), been hearing that an asst. (not named because I think its not official yet) from L.D Bell HS is coming over to take over the Head Band Director position.

 

Trinity HS hired Mr. Mario Casanova from Fort Worth Paschal HS

 

 

 

not a lot of movement...yet.

Edited June 20, 2008 by sax5warrior

[ftwdrummer]

LD Bell has replaced Nick Thomas already...so likely as not he's the new head at Birdville...

 

meanwhile, here's the bio on the new Bell director, one Jaime Alvarez-Calderon

 

  Quote

Jaime Alvarez-Calderon is an Associate Band Director at L.D. Bell High School in Hurst, Texas and Percussion Coordinator for the L.D. Bell cluster of schools in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD. He has a Bachelor of Music from Texas State University in San Marcos. He is currently a percussion consultant for the Crossmen Drum and Bugle Corps from San Antonio, Texas and active as a percussion clinician, composer, and adjudicator.

 

Mr. Alvarez-Calderon served on the Percussion Staff of the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps from Rosemont, IL from 2003-2007. While on staff, the corps went on to win its 6th title in 2004 and its 7th title in 2006. Prior to that, he taught as a Bass Drum Technician for the Madison Scouts in 2001 and 2002. Mr. Alvarez-Calderon is also an alumnus of the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps where he marched in during the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

 

Mr. Alvarez-Calderon has been on the Marching Band Staff for Texas State University Bobcat Band as well as the Arizona State University Sun Devil Marching Band. In 2004 and 2006 Mr. Alvarez-Calderon served as a Program Consultant/Designer, Music Arranger and Visual Designer for the Bronze Medalist Texas State University PASIC Drumline. In 2001 and 2002 he served as a battery instructor with the Southwest Texas State University (currently Texas State University) Bobcat band and PASIC competition Drumline

 

Mr. Alvarez-Calderon has had the opportunity to study and learn from many wonderful mentors including Jim Ancona, Beth Bronk, Jim Cassela, Bret Kuhn, Eric Johnson, Tony Edwards, Jim Hudson, John Lopez, Melissa Townsend, and Dr. Rod Schueller.

[borchnork]

FHS lost all three of their directors from what I hear. I think that's the third year in a row that they've had new directors.

[Dontforgettobreathe]

In Cy-Fair/Region 27 news...

 

 

Mr. Russell Holcombe left his position of Director of Bands at Cypress Springs HS to become the Director of Bands at the newly built Cypress Ranch HS.

 

Mr. John Nelson left his position as an Assistant Director and Percussion Director at Cypress Springs HS to become an Assistant Director and Percussion Director at Cy-Fair HS, and is expected to take the position of Director of Bands of Cy-Fair HS when Mr. Mark Veenstra steps down.

 

Mr. Justin Smith was promoted from Assistant Director to Director of Bands at Cypress Springs HS.

 

Mr. Blaine Locheed was hired from I think Edinburg North High School (correct me if I'm wrong if anyone goes to that school) as an Assistant Director and Percussion Director at Cypress Springs HS.

 

 

I think that covers our hectic director situation over here.. sorry for the unneeded capitalization and formalities..

[cubbanddude]

The new director at Birdville is Jolette Wine.

 

  ftwdrummer said:

LD Bell has replaced Nick Thomas already...so likely as not he's the new head at Birdville...

 

meanwhile, here's the bio on the new Bell director, one Jaime Alvarez-Calderon

 

[ftwdrummer]

  cubbanddude said:

The new director at Birdville is Jolette Wine.

 

Wow. I was expecting her to stay at Bell, seeing as she's an alum of the Blue Raider Band. That is a surprise. Out of curiosity, where'd Nick Thomas go?

 

Meanwhile, Paschal is still head-director-less, but has a new first assistant director: Mr. George Flores, formerly of Harlingen South.

Edited June 23, 2008 by ftwdrummer

[GuitarJoe]

Mario Casanova is now the head director at Trinity High School.

 

http://www.trinityband.org/staff.html

 

I had no idea he went to North Texas AND Julliard...

[AzNtRoMbOnEcHiCk]

we hired a new assistant director.

his name is andy rein.

he came from vines and

plano senior high schools.

 

he holds a masters degree

in bass trombone performance.

and a bachelors degree

in music education.

 

he seems cool.

[ftwdrummer]

Paschal has hired a new band director: Mr. Darrin Duff, formerly of Azle High School.

[Danpod]

  GuitarJoe said:

Mario Casanova is now the head director at Trinity High School.

 

http://www.trinityband.org/staff.html

 

I had no idea he went to North Texas AND Julliard...

 

Yeah. He can play a mean trumpet! I remember walking by his office in the mornings and would always catch him filling up a five liter air bag to capacity. Great stuff.

[Arabella]

  Danpod said:

Yeah. He can play a mean trumpet! I remember walking by his office in the mornings and would always catch him filling up a five liter air bag to capacity. Great stuff.

Correction: Could ONCE play a mean trumpet. He had some sort of stomach problem for a while that stopped him from being able to practice, and he's not nearly as impressive as he once was. It's a sad thing. Now he just practices a lot of lip slurs. Still good at the technical aspect, but his tone has been a little weakened.

[GuitarJoe]

Van Mathews has been named assistant director at LD Bell.

 

http://www.ldbellband.org/info/modules.php?name=Directors

[dtxtrmpt]

Dickinson is losing assistant director Roman Jakubas. It sucks, majorly.

[borchnork]

Just finding this out...

 

Apparently Centennial is losing it's percussion director of 5 years, Derrick Logozzo.

 

This was just announced today to... I wonder if they'll have enough time to hire a replacement.

[TRUMPet]

Dont know how this hasnt made it up here yet.... but Cp lost our Color Guard and Percussion staff back in may

 

We still have our old tenor/everything tech but everyone else is new from georgetown. the new percussion is Paul Pape (sp?) and he brouth 2(?or one cant recall) techs with him

 

Our new Color Guard director is actually a girl now. only took a couple years (not that the guys were bad...) but its Nhu Q. Trinh who actually plays flute and color guard, she did winter guard with nolan and code black (btw i have no clue who/what thoses are)

 

this will be an interesting year for us hopefully it keeps going as good as it was at the end of the school year

[mbui]

  TRUMPet said:

Dont know how this hasnt made it up here yet.... but Cp lost our Color Guard and Percussion staff back in may

 

We still have our old tenor/everything tech but everyone else is new from georgetown. the new percussion is Paul Pape (sp?) and he brouth 2(?or one cant recall) techs with him

 

Our new Color Guard director is actually a girl now. only took a couple years (not that the guys were bad...) but its Nhu Q. Trinh who actually plays flute and color guard, she did winter guard with nolan and code black (btw i have no clue who/what thoses are)

 

this will be an interesting year for us hopefully it keeps going as good as it was at the end of the school year

I know Manny Maldanado is now at new Lady Bird Johnson HS in San Antonio, but what happened to Michael Floyd? His color guard work and design is outstanding and I thought Cedar Park's guard this past year was a step up compared to years past.

 

P.S.: Nolan and Code Black are Independent Winter Guards that compete in WGI. Nolan Independent was based out of the Dallas area and Code Black is from Houston. I'm not all up on my winter guard stuff, but I think Nolan is no longer around. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[TRUMPet]

  Quote

I know Manny Maldanado is now at new Lady Bird Johnson HS in San Antonio, but what happened to Michael Floyd? His color guard work and design is outstanding and I thought Cedar Park's guard this past year was a step up compared to years past.

 

I dont know the full story, but i think he went either to houston or four A (but dont quote me on it). And i totaly agree that the color guard was getting alot better, they were looking more like color guard and less like robots with flags. I'm think its unamious at CPHS that he was one of the best CG directors avalible. he will be missed.

 

As For Maldanado he was a tough one to lose. Im glad to get conformation he got the job (he'd already decided to leave to be closer to his family, having a new kid and all his wife was taking on alot and she could use the support) aw now im all sad about it again

[borchnork]

  mbui said:

P.S.: Nolan and Code Black are Independent Winter Guards that compete in WGI. Nolan Independent was based out of the Dallas area and Code Black is from Houston. I'm not all up on my winter guard stuff, but I think Nolan is no longer around. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

 

Nope, you're right. I didn't know Code Black was in Houston though...

[treblemaker]

Leander lost an Amazing Director Mr. Duane O. Hill. He is going back to school to achieve his goal of ultimately becoming a college Director. We will miss him a lot but our new Director is Ms. Laura Cross who was Drum Major for Blue Coats this past year and graduated from the University of Houston. I believe she went to high school at the Woodlands also and was Drum Major there. Next year is going to be an exciting one. :]

[takigan]

  TRUMPet said:

We still have our old tenor/everything tech but everyone else is new from georgetown. the new percussion is Paul Pape (sp?) and he brouth 2(?or one cant recall) techs with him

 

Call it an upgrade. Pape was the percussion head at Georgetown: the man responsible for Georgetown's sweeping success as a drumline (easily one of the top 10 drumlines in the state) That sucks for Georgetown though. Hopefully their drumline will still rock the house.

 

But what's up with Park taking all of G-town's percussion instructors? lol. The percussion director before Pape; Manuel Maldonado, defected to CP back in '02.

[takigan]

Gonna post a bit on ol' "Gee-town":

 

Replacing Paul Pape for the Fall is percussion instructor, Jed Leach. Before coming to Georgetown, Leach was the percussion instructor at Plymouth-Canton Educational Park HS. In 2008, PCEP was a WGI Indoor Drumline World Finalist and the Michigan Colorguard and Drumline Circuit State champions. Leach is a Phantom Regiment alumnus ('01, '02) and has also taught at Lafayette HS in Kentucky (KMEA State marching band champions: 1990-2002, 2006).