Ellettsville native and a 2000 graduate of Edgewood High School Jared Metzger was appointed Cloverdale Junior-Senior High School band director over the summer.
He previously worked as assistant band director at Bloomington South High School for four years, and before that, he helped with both the Edgewood Junior High School beginning band program for about 10 years and the EHS Marching Mustangs for around two years.
As an Edgewood student, he participated in symphonic band, pep band, marching band, jazz band, jazz combos, and “played once or twice with the show choir band,” Metzger said.
He went on to Indiana University, where he studied jazz with a concentration in saxophone.
“I think one thing that being in all of those different types of ensembles taught me is that they boil down to the basics,” Metzger said. “Once you have a solid foundation, you can learn to play any style, any instrument, pretty well.”
Metzger said at this point he plays all the band instruments, though saxophone is his best.
“I feel like it gives me a little extra insight into some of the difficulties associated with each instrument and learning how to play each one,” he said. “Probably even more importantly, how to overcome them.”
Crucially, those skills allow Metzger to show his students how to do something when telling them fails.
He has a tall order in front of him at Cloverdale, with 250 students spread across fifth through 12th grade, many of whom also participate in band extracurriculars.
“That was one of the things that was really exciting about Cloverdale, being able to work with the kids for possibly eight years,” Metzger said.
Starting over the summer enabled him to meet students, parents and other band helpers ahead of the school year and train students for their performances at the 2016 Indiana State Fair.
“Other bands that I’ve worked with in the past have kind of a different marching band schedule, where it’s busier in the fall,” he said. “Cloverdale does the track shows. It’s a little bit different. The track shows are over the summer and everything kind of culminates in that state fair band performance.”
Metzger started his own music career at Edgewood Junior High School, where he credits Jim DeCaro for teaching him the value of getting started the right way.
“I didn’t realize at the time what he was doing and why he was doing the things he did,” he said. However, it helped him avoid improper techniques and bad habits that would have cost him in the long run.
During high school, Tom Cox helped Metzger connect to music and introduced him to the saxophone.
“He really had a passion for music that was effective, wore his heart on his sleeves,” Metzger said. “He taught us the value of teamwork and what it means to fill an individual responsibility to a group.”
“He was a saxophone player himself and kind of inspired me to become the best saxophone player that I could,” Metzger continued.
That dedication to and passion for the saxophone continues to this day for Metzger, more than 15 years later.
“I still play on a daily basis,” he said. “I don’t think that’ll ever stop. I hope it never stops.”
Originally published in Ellettsville Journal, 2016. Republished here for archival and portfolio purposes.