About the Director

Rebecca Clemens leads the band program at Margaret B. Pollard Middle School in Chatham County, North Carolina, where she has grown participation to 360 students in concert, jazz, and basketball bands since 2018. Ms. Clemens and the Pollard 8th grade band performed at the North Carolina Music Educators Conference in 2024, premiering a commission for band and rubber chickens.

Named Pollard’s Teacher of the Year (2021), Central Region Jazz Educator of the Year (2023), and Central District Band Director of the Year (2025), she holds a Bachelor’s from UNC-Chapel Hill and a Master’s from Texas State University. Ms. Clemens also teaches trombone at Meredith College, serves as an instructor with the UNC Marching Tar Heels, is Associate Director of the UNC Summer Jazz Workshop, and has served as Director of the UNC University Band. She currently chairs NCMEA’s Central Region Jazz Division and is a member of NAfME. 

As a freelance trombonist, she regularly performs with the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra, Moore Brass Quintet, and Raleigh Symphony. In her free time she enjoys traveling to Europe in the summer to play baroque trombone and can be heard on the Kris Collective’s baroque album Cor Collaborandi.