Jared Cassedy is the current band director at Lexington High School in Massachusetts, after teaching in New Hampshire for many years. He was the 2015 recipient of the Grammy Music Educator of the Year award and offers some great perspective for all band directors.

Topics:

• Jared's background growing up in New Hampshire, his education and training and his early career.
• Winning the Grammy Music Educator of the Year Award and being locked in a room with Kanye and Kim.
• Advice for band directors of all ages about the value of music education and some wisdom that he's learned during his career.

Links:

• Jared Cassedy
• Giroux: The Grace in Being

Biography:

Jared Cassedy is currently the K-12 Performing Arts Coordinator for the Lexington Public School System in Lexington, Massachusetts where he supports, supervises, and evaluates the department’s teachers, curriculum and assessment development, budget, and performing arts programming.  Along with his administrative responsibilities he conducts the most advanced concert band at the high school, the LHS Wind Ensemble.  Jared is also the conductor of the Junior Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School and currently serves as Chair-Elect for the Massachusetts Music Educators Association: Northeastern District.  Previous to coming to Massachusetts,  he served as President-Elect for the New Hampshire Music Educators Association (NHMEA).  In 2015 Jared was the recipient of the prestigious GRAMMY Music Educator Award furnished by the GRAMMY Foundation and The Recording Academy having been selected out of a pool of almost 10,000 nominees nationwide.  

Previous to his appointment in Lexington, Jared was the Director of K-12 Performing Arts for the Salem School District in Salem, NH and was the Director of K-12 Fine Arts for the Windham School District, in Windham, NH.  Jared began his teaching career in Windham, NH in 2005 first as the middle school band director and then was appointed as the first Director of Bands for the newly constructed Windham High School in 2009.  Jared’s continued collaboration with his students has enabled his ensembles to be selected to participate in a myriad of national performances and festivals including the National Band and Orchestra Festival at Carnegie Hall in NYC, the Festival of Gold at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, the NAfME Eastern Division Conference in Hartford, CT., and the Bands of America National Band Festival sponsored by Music for All and Yamaha in Indianapolis.  His ensembles were also selected to perform for the Mayor of Quebec City and the Governor of Montreal.  In 2011 the New Hampshire Band Directors Association honored Jared with the “Outstanding Young Band Director of the Year Award.”  He was also nominated for New Hampshire Teacher of the Year in 2014. 

Jared has conducted a number of regional honor bands in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut, given a variety of lectures on leadership and best practices in teaching, and has participated in TEDx talking about his journey and philosophies through education.  He graduated Summa cum Laude from the University of New Hampshire – Durham where he received his Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and has a Masters of Education degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus in Educational Leadership from Southern New Hampshire University.  He is a member of NAfME, MMEA, NBA, and ASCD, and the prestigious Pi Lambda Theta Education Honors Society.