Gary Hernandez says he's a lucky man: He's inherited a strong band program of 105 students at Key West High School and a recent state band evaluation indicates the musicians will sound great this year.
Hernandez, the new band master at the high school, took over the baton from Ashby Goldstein this summer after Goldstein moved to a new position at a middle school in Indian River County. He credits Goldstein for leaving him with a well-organized, disciplined group of kids.
"It's like driving someone else's car for the first year [as conductor]," Hernandez said Friday. "Everything's in good order and I appreciate that."
Like Goldstein, Hernandez is a Key West High School alumnus, but returned from his band director position in Avalon Middle School in Orlando this summer to his hometown "because I wanted to come back for the location, friends and family," he said
Hernandez described the program as he and the students prepare for their first concert of the year at the high school on Thursday.
The band program Hernandez heads is much more than a full-time job. In addition to a full slate of music classes during the day, there's marching band practice in the hot sun during football season, concerts in the community, and traveling by bus to evaluations and competitions throughout the state.
The music program consists of several kinds of ensembles, each of which is taught in a class during the day. After school and during events, the components practice and perform together.
Hernandez, who has a bachelor's degree in music and master's degree in music education from the University of Central Florida, teaches each component consisting of beginning and seasoned music students at the high school: the symphonic band, wind ensemble, percussion, jazz band, color guard and marching band.
"The jazz band is made up mostly of students with more experience," Hernandez said. "That includes bass, guitar, piano and other instruments."
Hernandez just took his students to their first Florida Bandmasters Association evaluation under his direction last week. The band received an overall "superior" rating at the Coral Springs evaluation.
"It's not a competition," Hernandez said. "It's a chance to have band directors with years and years of experience to critique us and provide us with specific objectives for [developing] high-level performance. It also helps the kids see how other high school bands perform and to size them up, too."
About a fourth of Hernandez's students are new band members, and because the high school has a small senior class this year, he only has about a dozen 12th-graders in his program. The seniors from last year have moved on, of course, but he has a strong junior class this year that he will build upon.
"We had a great performance," Hernandez said of the recent evaluation. "The judges said we had a good, solid performance and we'll continue to keep that level of excellence throughout the year."
Last year, the band won top honor around the state and Hernandez said there's no reason they can't continue the great performances. But he's going to wait until next year to enter them into state competition, he said.
Hernandez's students' first concert of the year is at 7 p.m. Thursday at Key West High School. The band also performed recently at Ed Swift's annual Day to Remember, during which Swift treats area seniors to lunch, entertainment and appreciation at the Bachelor Officer Quarters in Key West. A local gospel choir, guitar choir and the band rounded out the entertainment for the community's oldest residents.
Hernandez, who also is in charge of fundraising projects for the band, said he's going to ask for donations rather than sell tickets to the performances.
"It's my style," Hernandez said. "It's a good way to raise money for the band. It's expensive to run this program with buses and transportation to band evaluations. We have to travel three hours just to begin to travel."
He's confident the locals in Key West will be supportive of the band, both financial and otherwise.
"They know it takes quite a bit of money to do the things we have to do," he said.
The community will hear the results of his students' hard work Thursday evening.
jguerra@keysnews.com