In each of my classes students will find a musical experience tailored to the ability and expectations of their class.  

From their time as beginners in elementary school all the way through the award-winning Ridgeview HS Marching Mustangs and Concert Band, students will encounter an ascending musical curriculum that gifts each student with new knowledge and skill, and proceeds to challenge them to the next level!

I feel my role as a music educator is to provide a safe learning environment which can successfully facilitate the active participation of a diverse group of young thinkers, performers, and learners. I feel this should be accomplished not only by the distribution and practice of facts and skills, but also through the facilitation of discourse, and the free flow of ideas and opinions. Music is, after all, a highly subjective media to critique and experience.

The study of music is inherently human, as evidenced by the fact that it exists in some form within every culture worldwide throughout history. Therefore, to study music is to study culture. To be a part of a music education classroom is to reinforce the root study of the students’ own culture, as well as to experience and study cultures that would otherwise be completely foreign.

The study of music is also inherently emotional. Through the study of various types of music, which evokes various levels and types of emotion, it is my duty to ensure that students better understand their own emotions, and are better equipped to articulate what they are feeling, and why they are feeling that way.

As a secondary function of their music education, students will also have many "soft skills" developed and reinforced.  Utilizing musical study and performance as the primary vehicle, students will interact with one another and with literature that imposes creativity, flexibility, cooperation, discipline, empathy, compassion, and personal responsibility.