After band teacher Troy Davis resigned to teach at West Valley college as Director of Band and Jazz, the administration hired Kevin Gallagher as the new Band Director.
Davis taught at Aragon for 13 years, directing the band and jazz ensembles in addition to teaching AP Music Theory every other year. Outside of Aragon, he played for the Livermore Opera Orchestra as the principal oboist, Davis conducted for the Oakland Municipal Band, mentored young teachers, judged at music festivals, and played various woodwind instruments for broadway-style music shows. In his career, Davis had performed at upwards of 50 musicals.
He took over the Aragon Band program in 2005, when former band instructor Michael Galisatus left Aragon to teach at the College of San Mateo and referred Davis to the position. And just like Davis, who was endorsed by the Band Director before him, Gallagher was endorsed by Davis.
“When Mr. Davis found out that he had been offered a job at West Valley Community College, he called me and said, ‘you should you should really think about taking over my position,’” Gallagher said. “Then Dr. Kurtz emailed me and said we should meet up about you coming to Aragon, so it was kind of like, they really encouraged me to come here.”
Previously, Gallagher taught at Hillsdale High School. Gallagher said that he ultimately decided to switch over to Aragon due to more consistent scheduling and a better established music program.
“When I was teaching at Hillsdale, I [taught] many different classes that switched around and changed around over the last 12 years I was there,” Gallagher said. “So [as for] the consistency, I never had the chance to settle … having that stability is really important knowing that from year to year, I know what I’m going to be teaching.”
“Not to mention, there’s a great music program here. It’s a really fantastic music program that’s established it was it was established before Mr. Davis was even here … Whereas, in Hillsdale, I had to build the program … Borel had a really strong music program that feeds into Aragon whereas the feeding program at Abbott middle school, which feeds into Hillsdale is struggling a little bit and you can see that in the high school.”
Davis received notice of his job offer on May 31 and officially announced his resignation via email on June 1, the morning after graduation. Soon after during summer, a goodbye party was organized by orchestra and choir director John Chen and music booster presidents Natalia Estassi and Kristina Fayyad to give students a proper opportunity to bid farewell. At the party, band students prepared photo memory albums while September, Aragon’s all-male student acapella group, sang for Davis.
Many students, parents and staffulty members found Davis’s departure to be bittersweet.
“At first, I was really sad,” said junior Anastasia Yang, a Wind Ensemble student, “but I think it’s more important for us to be happy for him, because it [would be] unfair and selfish of us to keep him here when he has such a wonderful opportunity somewhere else.”
Fall marks a transition period for both Gallagher and the school community, but so far, Gallagher said he has been impressed by the performance Aragon students.
“A lot of these students that had the same director for years, having somebody [new] come in … could be kind of a difficult thing because they built a relationship with the [previous] director,” Gallagher said. “They really stepped up … and got used to how I do things. I told them I want to get used to how they do things and I want them to have a voice in the program too. So yeah, I’m really encouraged to be here.”
