Northtown welcomed plenty of new staff this year, including band director Anthony Hasek. This is Hasek’s 8th year as a band director and he is thrilled to continue his career through the Hornet Band.
“My experience at Northtown thus far has been excellent. It’s truly been a pleasure to get to know the students here at NKC and I am so excited to see what the future has in store for the band,” he said.
Sophomore Alyessa Cornelius expressed her optimism about the year.
“I’m looking forward to the many competitions and trips we’re going to take this year, and also the light show,” she said.
After long-time former band director Carrie Epperson stepped into a new position at Liberty Middle School, band students have been adjusting to the arrival of a new director.
“The previous band director and I are decent friends and get along, and we see eye to eye in a lot of stuff, so I saw a band that was almost tailor made for the way I like to teach. We’ve had to make a few tweaks because we’re not completely the same person, but I see a band that is eager to learn [and] has good taste in music. When we talk about music we like, we ended up talking about a lot of the same stuff. So that was really cool,” Hasek said.
Cornelius appreciates Hasek’s “friendly, authoritative, and respectable” approach to teaching. “I think the fact that he that he’s able to be versatile, like he could be strict when he needs to and nice when he needs to,” she said.
Hasek is not only authoritative of the band, but he pays attention to the wellbeing of his students.
“I see a lot of great things out of the kids. I see kids who really want to be there and really enjoy the activity. I see dedication to the craft. I’ve got kids who are really, really like band is their thing,” Hasek said.
