Article by Lucus Miller
Video by Joshua Stevens
With the start of the 2021 school year, Minarets High School is happy to welcome its new music teacher, Jason Von Wagner who hopes to share what he has learned about music to the young minds of his students. Although this is his first year teaching in public education, Wagner has been teaching private guitar lessons, as well as some vocals and drums, for fifteen to twenty years. He has recently been involved in a worship ministry at Yosemite Lakes Community Church where he’s taught others about sound mixing and playing in the band. While doing this, Minarets reached out to him to see if he would be willing to teach in the music department for the school.
As a young saxophone player, his father is the one who got Jason and his brother into learning and playing instruments.
"The first time I played a song all the way through on guitar after learning the chords and lyrics, it felt empowering and made me realize that if I can do that, then I can learn any song."
He went on to play in bands in his own time as well as in high school, which then led him to going to college and studying music. While in college, he would get together with others to play and even go out for gigs.
He didn’t expect that he would be playing at the church, where he has been a member for fifteen years, or even teaching at Minarets, but he "felt the Holy Spirit urging me to teach others about music". During his first month teaching at Minarets, he says that all his students and the school administration have been respectful and supportive of what he is teaching.
The school is ready for an exciting and interesting year to see what Jason Von Wagner has to offer.
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