Talented musician Conrad Johnson gives up fame and fortune with international orchestras to pursue a career as a music educator.

If you are a music teacher or a jazz aficionados, you have no doubt heard of Conrad Johnson, Sr., a music educator from Houston, Texas. In addition to his role as a remarkable educator, Conrad was a phenomenal musician.

Conrad once played with the legendary Count Basie, and Erskine Hawkins once tried to persuade him to join his orchestra. But Conrad declined the fame and fortune he was offered because he didn’t want to leave his family or his give up his career as a  teacher. “Conrad Johnson is one of Houston’s unsung cultural heroes,” says Rick Mitchell, former pop music critic for the Houston Chronicle. “He could have made a national name for himself with his two big bands. Instead he chose to devote his career to educating Houston’s future musicians. He is retired from the school system, but he’s still hard at work as an educator.”

Born in Victoria, Texas, the young Conrad was nine years old when his family moved to the port city of Houston. After graduating from Yates High School, Conrad attended Houston College for Negroes, and then Wiley College in Marshall in eastern Texas, where he graduated in 1941. He started his career as a music educator at Kashmere High School that same year.

Conrad made a lasting contribution to music when he formed the Kashmere Stage Band, an internationally-known school orchestra that won a number of awards during its decade-long existence. His kids always called him “Prof.” Under Prof’s tutelage, the student musicians in the Kashmere Band won forty-two out of the forty-six competitions they entered between 1969 and 1977. They recorded eight albums featuring more than twenty original compositions by Conrad, and they went on tour throughout the United States, Japan, and Europe.

In 1978, following a thirty-seven-year career, Conrad retired from his position at Kashmere High School. In his retirement, he continued to remain active in shaping music in Houston by conducting summer programs and in-home tutoring. In 2000, the talented educator was inducted into the Texas Bandmasters Hall of Fame. The Conrad O. Johnson School of Fine Arts, a magnet school at Kashmere High School, is named after him. This wonderful teacher and musician passed away in 2008 at the age of 92.

To learn more about this chalkboard champion, click on this link: The Conrad O. Johnson Music and Fine Arts Foundation.

Many talented musicians also serve as exemplary music educators. This is true of Colyn Fischer, an award-winning violinist from Pennsylvania who now works as a middle school music teacher in northern California.

Colyn was born in 1977 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began to play the violin when he was only three years old. Since the age of five, he has concentrated on the specialty of Scottish fiddling. While just a teenage, Colyn studied under a number of notable American Scottish fiddlers, including John Turner and Bonnie Rideout, and several celebrated fiddlers from Scotland, including Ian Powie and Alasdair Hardy.

Following his graduation from Penn-Trafford High School in Harrison City, Pennsylvania, Colyn enrolled at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. There he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance in violin from Wheaton College in 1999. He completed the requirements for his teaching credential at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 2005.

In 1993, Colyn garnered the first-place title in the American National Scottish Fiddling Championship, Junior Division. In 2005 he won in the open category in Texas, a title which he captured again in 2006 in Ohio.

Colyn first taught music in grades three through eight in the Silver Valley Unified School District in California’s San Bernardino County. He worked there from 2006-2009. Currently, Colyn teaches orchestra at Central Middle School in the San Carlos School District located in San Francisco, California. He also teaches the annual Jink and Diddle School of Scottish Fiddling, and gives private violin and fiddle lessons.

To view Colyn playing Scottish tunes, watch the You Tube video above.

Music educator Tony White will once again lead the All District High School Honor Band in their annual appearance in the Rose Parade on Tuesday, January 1. For the past three decades, the group has been marching under the able direction of this amazing educator. Tony worked as a music teacher at John C. Fremont High School for ten years. Although he currently works as a professional jazz musician playing the saxophone and clarinet, he is still heavily involved with music and arts education, serving as the music and entertainment coordinator in the LA Unified School District. “The  challenge for me is maintaining both,” he asserts.

This chalkboard champion earned his Bachelor’s degree from University of California, Riverside, his teaching credential at Cal State Dominguez Hills, and his Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Pepperdine University.

The 390-member band is comprised of student musicians from all over the Los Angeles Unified School District. The group has appeared in the Rose Parade every year since 1973, and has also appeared in Super Bowls XI, XIV, and XVII. This impressive band is known for its energetic marching style and powerful brass. And, a little-known fact about this band is that both celebrated musicians Herb Alpert and John Williams were once participants.

You can learn more about the Los Angeles All District High School Honor Band at  www.laallcityband.com. Be sure to watch their performance in the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day!