James Rogers is a band director at Mountain Brook High School.
Q: How long have you been a band director?
A: So, this is the start of my 13th year teaching. Um, I've spent the last seven years in Mountain Brook. I was the beginning band Director in 2017, and then was the junior high band director, or the Associate Director of Bands, for the past five years. And then this past year was my first year in the role of Director of Bands for all of Mountain Brook's band programs. Prior to that, I taught at Montevallo High School and Childersburg High School.
Q: What made you want to be a band director?
A: What made me want to be a band director are the relationships I had with my band directors growing up, as well as my relationship with band growing up. I always knew that I wanted to teach. Um, for the longest time,I thought that was gonna be history. I'm a product of the Mountain Brook school system. So I've had some great teachers throughout the years. But when I got into college and I started to think about what subject? Honestly, I leaned more towards band and music because I would get to teach those kids for their entire time in my program.
Q: What’s your favorite part of the job?
A: Favorite part of my job is, honestly,the relationships I get to build. Whether that's with my colleagues, my other band directors, Ms. Sarah Niedzwiecki or Dr. Michelle Smith, or with our amazing parents. But, most importantly,is relationships I get to build with my students. Um, one of the thingsI love about Mountain Brook is that I get to see our kids and work with our kids starting at beginning band all the way through high school. So I get to spend seven years with them and it really allows us to build a strong bond.
Q: Tell us about your plans for your halftime show.
A: This year's show is a little bit different for us. It's going to take a little bit of a darker turn. So we're starting out with CCR's "Bad Moon Rising," starting in a major key and then moving it into minor before we start going and corrupting the whole band. So we move from that to our second movement to "Look What YouMade Me Do" by Taylor Swift and a little bit of "Bad Guys" by Billie Eilish. Our third movement is "SoundOf Silence." Um, but not the, um, Simon and Garfunkel, but the Disturbed cut of that. And then we end things with "Separate Ways" by Journey, bu tmade recently popular again by "StrangerThings," and then we can do a recap at the end where we put everything together. But the show is gonna be great. It's gonna be like I said, a little bit darker, a little bit more intense. We get to show off our powerful low brass section. We have seven tubas this year. Um and so, we're really gonna play with our strengths and have a lot of fun.
Q: What are your hopes for the band this year?
A: Honestly, my biggest hope for the band this year is to continue to build on those relationships that we have and have the band be more connected than it ever has been before. Our bandhas grown, um, astronomically over the last five or six years, we've more than doubled in size. And with that, um means that there's a lot of new faces and a lot of new people that we're trying to incorporate and introduce. And so just having a complete and connected band is my goal this year.
