Photo Courtesy of Highland Schools

Highland High School Band Director Andrew McDonald will attend the Iowa Bandmasters Association Young Conductor’s Workshop as the southeast Iowa representative. McDonald, a Linn-Mar graduate, has been passionate about teaching and music for as long as he can remember. “When I was a little kid, my uncle was the football coach at Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids. So a typical weekend for me was my grandpa picking me up on a Friday night and taking me to a Jefferson football game. So from the beginning I was always more interested in watching the band’s halftime show than the game. Ever since I was in about first grade I knew I wanted to be in band when I got older. I often joke that by getting into teaching I joined the family business. My mom has taught kindergarten in Cedar Rapids for the past 29 years. My dad has taught fifth grade for 29 years. On my dad’s side both of my grandparents were teaching and my mom’s younger brother, my uncle John, is a high school math teacher. For me, teaching was not a difficult decision to think about, it was really more about what subject would I teach?” 

Those passions led McDonald to Highland High School where he has served as band director for two years. During this school year he had an opportunity to apply for the Bandmasters Young Conductor’s Workshop, a program that he participated in during its first year as a member of the Linn-Mar High School band. The program is open to teachers who have five years of experience or fewer, and the process includes submitting an essay on why you would be a good candidate to participate, previous experience in receiving conducting feedback, resume and a headshot. He shares with KCII News what he expects from the experience, “Directors will submit audio tapes of their band to be selected as the ‘Clinic Band’. Once the band is selected, they perform the music from the audition tape and turn things over to a young conductor like me and you let them work with your band for 20 minutes to half an hour. Giving them feedback. And then while that’s happening, a veteran educator is sort of standing over that young conductor’s shoulder and giving them pointers.”

The workshop is scheduled for mid-May. You can hear a full interview with McDonald on Tuesday’s JJ Nichting Company In Touch With Southeast Iowa program on-air or online at KCIIradio.com.