Mr. Riegel, Director

John Riegel is in his twenty-eighth year as a music educator this school year, having served as Director of Orchestras at Hilliard Darby High School since 2000 and Performing Arts Department Facilitator since 2002. Prior to coming to Hilliard, Mr. Riegel directed the orchestra program in the Mansfield, Ohio City Schools for nine years.

Originally from Oxford, Ohio, Mr. Riegel holds a Master of Arts in Music and Bachelor’s degrees in Music Education and Music Performance from The Ohio State University, where his major teachers included Dr. Robert Gillespie (string pedagogy) and Michael Davis (violin). He began his teaching career as string specialist and high school orchestra director in the Mansfield City Schools in 1990. During his tenure in Mansfield, he also served as chair of the OMEA East-Central Region for six years, organizing and overseeing the annual Region Orchestra festival and Region/All-State Orchestra string auditions, and reporting to the OMEA state board. From 1993 to 2001, Mr. Riegel conducted the Mansfield Symphony Junior Strings Youth Orchestra (now known as the Mansfield Youth Strings), one of two youth orchestras under the auspices of the Mansfield Symphony. He was a faculty member of the Ohio String Teachers Association Middle School Orchestra Camp for twelve summers. Since 2011 he has served as an orchestra director at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp near Muskegon, Michigan.

Mr. Riegel holds memberships in the American String Teachers Association, National Association for Music Education, and the Ohio Music Education Association. An active violinist, he has performed with the Mansfield Symphony and numerous other ensembles, and currently freelances in the Columbus area.

Mr. Riegel resides in Columbus with his wife Turid, also a violinist and teacher.