After Hours: Conversations for Music Educators

This week we kick off a series of six episodes designed to get you ready for the upcoming school year. 

We're posting this episode on Monday, July 7, 2025, and we'll have new episodes this Thursday, July 10th, as well as on Monday and Thursday for the next two weeks, so that will be July 14th, 17th, 21st, and 24th. 

The episodes that post on the 14th and 17th will be all about instrument placement, and the following week we...

This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Dr. John Zastoupil, Director of Bands at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

In this episode we'll learn more about the responsibilities of the job away from the podium. He'll also tell us what he does to try to achieve a healthy work-life balance in a demanding job such as this.

Our conversation was recorded in December 2024. We've broken it up into two ep...

This week Nick Averwater talks with Dr. John Zastoupil, Director of Bands at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

In this episode we'll learn about the musical path that brought Dr. Zastoupil to UT  three years ago, and some of the exciting ways the program is continuing to grow. He'll also share his thoughts on how high school band directors can prepare students who want to be a part of a college band program.

Our con...

This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Faith Serna, Assistant Band Director and Color Guard Coordinator at Highland High School in Highland, Arkansas. The Highland School District serves several small towns in north central Arkansas, and Faith grew up in the district.

In the last episode, Faith talked about starting, or improving, color guard in a marching band, but in this second part of the conversation we'l...

This week Nick Averwater talks with Faith Serna, Assistant Band Director and Color Guard Coordinator at Highland High School in Highland, AR. The Highland School District serves several small towns in north central Arkansas. Faith grew up in the district, and studied with two band directors who are now her colleagues, Hope and Greg Bruner.

In this episode Faith will tell us more about getting students interested in color guard, the ...

This week we wrap up our six-part series looking at recruiting students for your band program as Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Brent Hopper, Nathan Anderson, and Brandan Bakkala. Brent is Middle School Band Director at Lakeland Preparatory School in Lakeland, TN, which is a town of around 14,000 located just northeast of Memphis. Nathan is a band director at Greene County Tech in Paragould, a city of 30,000 in nort...

This week we continue with episode five of our six-part series looking at recruiting students for your band program as Nick Averwater talks with Brent Hopper, Nathan Anderson, and Brandan Bakkala. Brent is Middle School Band Director at Lakeland Preparatory School in Lakeland, TN, which is a town of around 14,000 located just northeast of Memphis. Nathan is a band director at Greene County Tech in Paragould, a city of 30,000 in nor...

This week we continue with episode four of our six-part series looking at recruiting students for your band program as Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Joe Quinnelly, Reggie Coleman, and Daniel Ritch. Joe Quinnelly is Director of Bands at Hernando Middle School, which is part of the largest school district in Mississippi, and is located just south of Memphis. Reggie Coleman is Band Director at Rocky Fork Middle School...

This week we continue with episode three of our six-part series looking at recruiting students for your band program as Nick Averwater talks with Joe Quinnelly, Reggie Coleman, and Daniel Ritch. Joe Quinnelly is Director of Bands at Hernando Middle School, which is part of the largest school district in Mississippi, and is located just south of Memphis, Reggie Coleman is Band Director at Rocky Fork Middle School in Smyrna, TN, whic...

This week we continue our series taking a closer look at recruiting students for your band program, and we'll hear the second part of a conversation Nick Averwater had with Brittany Jerrell and Emma Lang. Brittany is Co-Director of Bands at Stewarts Creek Middle School in Smyrna, TN, a city of just over 50,000, 20 miles southeast of Nashville. Emma teaches at Trenton-Rosenwald Middle School in Trenton, TN, which is a town of 4...

This week we're kicking off a series taking a closer look at recruiting students for your band program, a topic that seems to come up in nearly every episode of the podcast, and one that you have asked us to address even further. In the next six episodes we'll be learning a lot from eight educators in three different conversations.
So, in this episode and the next one, Nick Averwater will be talking with Brittany Jerr...

This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Michael Parsons, Director of Instrumental and Popular Music at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, TN. Michael is also Director of Sound Fuzion, a pop vocal ensemble at the University of Memphis.
In this episode we'll learn more about how Michael uses pop music ensembles like Soundscape, which is a group of 16 instrumentalists and vocalists, to recruit students f...

This week Nick Averwater talks with Michael Parsons, Director of Instrumental and Popular Music at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, TN. Michael is also Director of Sound Fuzion, a pop vocal ensemble at the University of Memphis.
In this episode we'll learn about how Michael has incorporated pop music groups and commercial music studies into the music department at Briarcrest, but in a way that enhances the tradition...

This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Gillian Desmarais, who teaches Music Production and Engineering at Harmony Learning Center in Maplewood, MN. Gillian is the founder of Sound Tech Ed, a website that provides resources for music programs that allow students to learn and grow with music technology. She has also been named to the 2024 Yamaha 40 Under 40 list of music educators, and was named 2024 Teacher Of The ...

This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Gillian Desmarais, who teaches Music Production and Engineering at Harmony Learning Center in Maplewood, MN. Gillian is the founder of Sound Tech Ed, a website that provides resources for music programs that allow students to learn and grow with music technology. She has also been named to the 2024 Yamaha 40 Under 40 list of music educators, and was named 2024 Teacher Of The ...

This week we continue our look at using technology in music education, as Nick Averwater talks with Gillian Desmarais, who teaches Music Production and Engineering at Harmony Learning Center in Maplewood, MN.
Gillian is the founder of Sound Tech Ed, a website that provides resources for music programs that allow students to learn and grow with music technology. She has also been named to the 2024 Yamaha 40 Under 40 list of mus...

This week Nick Averwater continues his conversation with Theresa Hoover, a music educator, clinician, author, and podcast host.
In the last episode, we learned about how technology, particularly AI, can benefit music educators with things like writing lesson plans and recruitment. This week Theresa will talk about other AI resources that are useful to music educators. We'll also find out more about the concepts behind her...

This week Nick Averwater talks with Theresa Hoover, a music educator, clinician, author, and podcast host.
In this episode, we'll be learning about how technology, particularly AI, can benefit music educators with things like writing lesson plans, recruitment, and more. Theresa is the author of the book, Empowering Ensembles with Technology, which can be downloaded at the website for F-Flat Books.
Our conversation wa...

This week Nick Averwater talks with Dr. Matthew Arau, Chair of the Music Education department at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and author of the book, Upbeat! Mindset, Mindfulness and Leadership in Music Education And Beyond, published by GIA Publications. Dr. Arau is also the founder of Upbeat Global.

As the 2024-2025 school year gets underway, Dr. Arau will share his ideas for starting the year off right, in...