Keeping the Music Alive at Newark Memorial

The start of each school means readjustment for students, but for Joanne Hong this year, it also means getting used to a new environment and musical role.

Hong has been named the new band and choir teacher at Newark Memorial High School. 

She was moved into the position during the summer when the decided to have only one music teacher position this school year, due to budget restraints. 

While Hong may be a new face on the Newark Memorial campus, she is a relatively familiar face in the school district. First hired in 2005, she was the choir teacher of . She comes with 22 years of experience and was choral director of an employee choir at Disneyland.

Junior high vs. high school? Hong tends to favor the high school more.

 “The students are more dedicated to what they’re doing in band and choir because they have four years' experience with their group and they have more relationships formed,” Hong said. “I was told by a friend who also taught in junior high and high school that I would love the higher level of musicality that I would be working with, and that’s very true."

Hong has embraced becoming a choir director at the high school, but she had to prepare for her duties as band director. She spent the summer going to band camps and rehearsals and reading books about band instruction.

Still, the challenges have been present in both choir and band. In the band classes, Hong said, she is still figuring out how to balance the instruments and select music pieces.  In choir, it’s a matter of dealing with the personalities, relationships and dynamics within the group. 

Hong’s goals are high. She hopes to build a “renewed respect” for what the band and choir are doing and “achieve higher levels of musicality.”

“My overall goal would be to rebuild the [music] program and get more people interested. But that’s going to be very difficult without feeders from the elementary schools and junior high school,” she said.

Hong hopes that music can return as a strong art form not just at but for the entire city of Newark.

 “I just don’t know how to impress on the community the importance of music — in the elementary schools especially because there have been so many studies about how music enhances the brain’s ability to work math and science and all those other things,” she said. “If there’s anything that we can do to get music back on the map in Newark, that’s what I’d like to say as my final piece.”