The Easton High School Band : Band Director : Lisa Bays

Band Director, Lisa Bays

By Ann E. Dorbin

Lisa Bays brings solid qualifications and a love of band music to the Easton High School band program. During her own high school days, Bays consistently took first chair at all?county band competitions and twice won first chair in the all?state band. "Music was my great love," she says. "That was all I did."

Bays graduated in 2002 from West Virginia University, which has more than a century?long history of excellence in music education. She holds bachelors degrees in music education and percussion performance, and a master's degree in percussion performance. WVU has a renowned steel drum program, in which Bays completed a graduate assistantship teaching the college's steel bands and two percussion ensembles, as well as a pedagogy class on how to teach percussion music. She directed the WVU drumline and learned how to construct and tune steel drums. During this time, she also performed in the Cadets of Bergan County drum and bugle corps, ran middle school band camps, and worked with high school marching bands for seven years. Her influences range from her piano?playing mother, to her first Sears?catalog drum set, to Rob Lowe playing saxophone in the movie St. Elmo's Fire, to Ellie Mannette, a native of Trinidad, professor at WVU, and the principal innovator and designer of the modern steel drum. (Mannette built the steel drums played by Easton's High Groove Steeler Steel Drum Orchestra.)

"As I was doing my graduate work," Bays recalls, "I came to really love teaching. I enjoyed working with students and soon the number of participants in my ensembles increased. When we performed, it sounded great. Soon I was really hooked! It is very rewarding-the students love it and the audience loves it. I especially enjoy working with high school students. The kids at Easton High are a great group-smart, hardworking, and with a good attitude. There's a lot of support and enthusiasm behind these bands, not only because of their past success, but also because there have been students struggling in school who turned themselves around after being positively influenced by their band experience."

Bays stresses the importance of independent practice time. "Practicing is just like homework for any class," she emphasizes. "Matt Fullerton at the Middle School has an awesome program. He focuses on daily practice and trains his students well, and that carries over into the high school program. But at this level," she says, "classroom time is limited and must be used for rehearsal. For my own self esteem, I want to do well, but ultimately the students are responsible, too. We all do it together: me, students, and parents." Bays intends to continue Easton's tradition of musical diversity. "You can't just play the same style of music," she says, "or it gets boring-for the players and for the audience. Any concert needs to be an evening of stimulating music. That has always been a high priority for me-not only from the standpoint of audience entertainment, but also focusing on teaching students something new and continually increasing their level of play."

One of the first things she did upon arriving at the Easton band program was to move the sizeable trophy collection out of her office and into the main rehearsal room. "I don't want to hide my student's accomplishments," she beams, "I want to show them off and inspire them to continue to achieve to the best of their abilities."