Living the drum life is what it’s all about for the school’s new percussion director Jonathan Jadvani. Hailing from South Florida, Jonathan Jadvani hit the ground running as the 2017 marching band season starts. Recently Wingspan caught up with Jadvani for a Q&A.

Wingspan: What do you like about being here?

Jadvani: “I really like the academic environment and how all the students tend to be involved in more than just one thing. There seems to be a lot of comradery among the students that I’ve met so far, and that to me is pretty exciting as a teacher to see.”

Wingspan: What is different at this school than other places that you’ve taught?

Jadvani: “I’ve taught in a lot of different places. I think there are a lot of cultural differences here in the student body. In the place that I was at last, most of the students were primarily from South America, so we had a lot of the South American, Cuban, Ecuadorian type of students. That was pretty much the makeup of the students. We had a lot of Hessian, Caribbean students as well. So seeing a little bit more of the Asian and Indian population and the culture that kind of goes along with it, that was pretty cool to experience and see as well. So that was primarily the biggest difference I’ve seen so far.”

Wingspan: What made you get into percussion?

Jadvani: “I had really great teachers. I was in percussion in middle school and high school, and my teachers really made my experience really great, and it was something that I gravitated towards early. I knew by the time I was done with middle school that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So I focused a lot on that, and I had very nurturing teachers all along the way who encouraged me. It just kind of felt natural for me to take this path, and to give back and teach students as a career.”

Wingspan: What did you do before teaching?

Jadvani: “Well, that’s kind of a roundabout question. I’ve always been a teacher. I graduated high school, went to college, taught the whole time I was in college, performed a lot. My degrees were actually in music performance, so that was my background. I went straight into my masters’ degree out of my bachelors’, I continued teaching and playing, and going to school. I left my masters degree and taught adjunct at the University of Miami, and about four or five high schools; I was freelancing, playing with all the orchestras in the area, and was teaching about 15 private students. I kind of was burning the candle at all ends. I left teaching altogether for about two and a half years, and went into selling IT solutions and headhunting. I had a really close friend that I had worked with in hip-hop and R&B, and he had a family business selling IT solutions and headhunting, and whenever I had come into my situation, he said “Hey, why don’t you come work for me?” I spent about two and a half years doing that, and made a lot of money for my company, and was good at it, but it didn’t speak to me. I taught private lessons on the side, I volunteered with a lower socioeconomic school district, teaching an elementary school drumline once a week. I loved those kids, it was so much fun. It kept me in the teaching mindset, and when the band director position came open, I had spent years as a percussion teacher there, and I knew the department chair and I knew the principal, and it was a natural progression to step into that job, and I became the head band director at that point. There were about 4800 students at Cypress Bay High School; we had a little over 200 in the band program, but there was only me.”

Wingspan: You had to run an entire band without any other teachers under you, essentially without any help. Does that make you appreciate this job more, knowing where you came from?

Jadvani: “Yeah absolutely. I’ve got a percussion background, but most recently, I’ve been in charge of running an entire band program. Coming here has been a really nice breath of fresh air that way, because I can focus in on something that I know very well, and also have the opportunities to speak to the other things I’ve learned from running a whole band program and working with the band, and have a little bit of a balance between life and work. I was working about 80 hours per week consistently, so it’s different here, which is very nice.”

Wingspan: You’ve spoken about bringing things here that you’ve learned from running a band, and you’ve gotten to know the students and the percussion section over the summer and into the school. What changes, if any, would you want to implement into the percussion program?

Jadvani: “Through my years of experience, I’ve learned that you don’t ever come into a program and just try to change things right away. You sit back and you see what works, and what maybe could use a little tweak or improvement here and there. You try to slowly, over time, make those decisions. I don’t ever want to knee jerk, and especially in this situation, where there’s been a turnover pretty consistently over the last three years. The last thing I would want to do is come in and create more chaos. So we’ve tried to keep it as consistent as possible for the students. At the end of the day, I try to see things through the lenses of the student, and try to make sure that if I were in their shoes, how would I feel about those decisions being made up top? It goes back to what we started with, why did I go into teaching and why did I get into percussion? It’s because I had that stability from my teachers above, and whenever they made decisions, I always knew it was made in the best interests of us as a whole. Any decision that I make, I try to think that through and make sure that I’m transparent and that it’s the best decision for everybody as a whole.”

Wingspan: “Do what we do. Be who we are.” What does this statement mean to you as a teacher?

Jadvani: ”It really talks to maintaining a clear path of direction, and understanding what the long term goal is. If you want to achieve high levels of success, you have to separate yourself from the noise and stay true to your path. Yeah, you’re going to adjust and tweak a little bit here and there, but you have to be you and not worry about what everybody else is doing. That to me is very important in running a program from any level. You have to have a plan in mind and stay true to it.”

Wingspan: How do you want your students to embody this principle?

Jadvani: ”I think accountability from the individual level is really important. It’s really hard for us as a group to grow unless everybody takes that on their shoulders. If we can all do that, and have respect for each other that way, we’re going to do wonderful things.”