Mr. Chace is the music teacher here at Oliver Ames High School who has taken on a lot of responsibility. He came up from Richardson Olmstead and is now here at Oliver Ames.
Music has always meant so much to Mr. Chace ever since he was a little kid because he has always had a passion for music.
“So like growing up, music was important to me and I always enjoyed it. It’s a place that I always belonged and had a lot of fun with and it was a huge part of my life that I just wanted to nurture. So it’s something I wanted to really deal with – music. I wanted to do music for my life because I get to share it with other people.”
There have been so many cool moments and parts for Mr. Chace for the music department because he has lots of favorite parts and he can’t really choose just one.
“It’s hard to come up with one favorite part because there are so many kinds of cool things, but especially, like just getting your chance to see kids shine on stage when you see somebody that might not really always like to get up in front of people or just struggle with those types of things.”
The health of the music department is not in a bad spot as they had to make some cuts this past year but they are also going to be gaining some next school year.
“You know, we had some cuts last year, so things were a little tough, but going into next year, we’re looking like we’re doing, we’re about the same. We actually might get a little bit of extra help down in kindergarten music, which would be nice to add.”
The hardest part about Mr. Chace coming from the elementary school is just the transition because going from an elementary school with little kids is a big change to high school kids.
“A lot of it is just getting used to the fact that, like, every building has its own culture and things are a little different and you used to, like what the, you know, at RO. We have a certain way of doing things and the way the kids kind of go through their regular day and you come to the high school and it’s completely different.”
Mr. Chace really wants his students to collaborate in all of his music classes because it’s an important skill to have because you always want to be able to talk with people.
“It’s great for the kids working together. Obviously in an ensemble, like band orchestra and chorus, you have to be able to collaborate, because you’re all singing together or you are playing together and you have to blend your sounds to make work together.”
He has a very busy work schedule every day as it is always a long day for Mr. Chace.
“So every day, I have two band classes, so the band split in half. There’s two band classes, an orchestra class and a chorus class. Those are the four classes I have to teach during the day but I also go to all of the other schools’ music departments to make sure they are doing fine.”
