Saratoga News

Photography by George Sakkestad

Mike Boitz works with students during Band Camp at Saratoga High School shortly before school opened for the new year.

SHS band director enjoys sharing his love of music

By Shari Kaplan

"I think you've all earned your dinner tonight!" shouts Saratoga High School's new band and orchestra director, Michael "Mike" Boitz, as he walks with satisfaction in front of the 80 or so students assembled on the back field before a dinner break.

It is a new experience for them both. For Boitz, a native of Minnesota, this is his first year in the California school system. For the incoming freshmen as well as some older students, this is their first year of Band Camp--an intense program of 10-hour days that ran Aug. 17-21 and was designed to give them a head start on marching maneuvers, color-guard work and playing in unison.

Working the students through Band Camp was something of a sink-or-swim initiation into the life of an SHS band director, but Boitz--clad in sunglasses, shorts, T-shirt and lots of sunscreen--clearly was excited by the chance to dive in and bond with students.

"This is the easiest and best group I have worked with. They're by far the most upbeat and fastest-learning students," says Boitz, who taught in Minnesota for three years before moving to California. Ironically, it was getting in trouble while a student himself that he says led him to go for his teaching credentials, which he earned from Minnesota's Concordia College along with a bachelor's degree in music.

"In eighth grade I was in the back of the band room, and I caused some problems. Low brass players are notorious for carrying on idle conversations in the back of the room," he says with a grin. "My teacher threw me up in front of the class and made me conduct it. I realized I loved music more than anything. I also loved working with the other students. From that point on, I knew this was something I wanted to do."

Although he didn't discover his love of teaching until the eighth grade, Boitz, at 25 the youngest of four siblings, says his love for music goes back to his early childhood in Anoka, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis. His favorite playthings were toy musical instruments, and his favorite part of the football games his parents took him to was the marching band performance. "I guess I was a strange little kid," he says, chuckling at what the football fans must have thought.

Although he's not quite sure what kind of influence it had on him, Boitz says his father once sang in a barbershop quartet and played a homemade "garbage can bass" in a polka band. Boitz's mother cultivated her son's interest in music by taking him to performances by the St. Paul Orchestra.

After repeatedly begging his parents to let him play the trumpet, he convinced them. From then on, he was unstoppable, picking up various instruments along the way, which he continues to do to this day. He also sang in choirs whenever he had the chance.

Boitz's favorite instrument is the tuba, which he played professionally in Minnesota and is hoping to play here if he can find the right groups or ensembles. He also enjoys playing the bass trombone and--among other instruments--the cello, drums and piano.

"I play all instruments, but I don't play them all well," he says with a big smile. His favorite musical genres, he adds, are jazz, orchestral and symphonic music. Recognizing that some students prefer styles such as rap and alternative rock, Boitz says he plans to try orchestrating aspects of various musical genres into what he does with the band.

"I have all kinds of ideas of what to do with the band this year, but my main goal is to give these kids the best and most well-rounded musical experience, just like the experience I had in school," he says. He's also looking forward to what he stands to pick up from his students along the way.

"The biggest thing I've learned is that I learn about 10 times more from kids than I could teach them," he adds.

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