 with Bill Zinn who is a choir teacher you all may have heard of and he has been teaching for over 30 years and he's retiring this year. So how are you doing? I'm doing real well, thanks Cassidy. Nice, alright so let's just start from the very beginning. When did you first realize that you had this passion for music? I've been musical my whole life. My mother was a music teacher and my father was a minister and music was just a part of our lives all the time. And I sang as a child in the church choir and played in band in elementary school and junior high and I've been involved in music since I can remember. Sweet and like when did that lead into you specifically wanting to like teach a choir? Did it find you or did you find that passion on your own? Well it kind of came around from the side. I was always musical and I had been thinking about career choices and when I went to college I was thinking I knew I wanted to be a teacher and in addition to the education program I had to declare a second major because education itself at Beloit College where I went to school in Wisconsin was not a major per se so you had to have a major and go through the certification program. So they kind of paired with each other? They kind of paired with each other and it turned, I got involved in the music program at college right away and I'd been in the high school choir and I'd just been musical playing the guitar and everything else my whole life and so I paired those two things and that's when it started to come together that I would be a music teacher. Of course in your education training you go through classroom teaching experiences and all of that kind of thing but as I got into my internship for my master's degree I was directing bands and choirs. Yeah and so what type of big steps did you have to take in order to become a choir teacher other than doing that training in class? Well of course I continued as a part of the music program in college I studied conducting so I was given responsibility for conducting a little bit of a concert or two during my school years there and I'd always been interested in leadership. In putting it together it was kind of it just sort of flowed to where it needed to be. As I was going to school in Wisconsin knowing that I would want to come at least visit California at one point in time I learned that there was reciprocity between the certification program at Beloit College in Wisconsin and in the state of California so when I got here in August of 1980 I got on the substitute teaching lists and in addition to that I found that there were some things I had to take a couple classes at Sac State that I did to classes. There was a special ed class I had to take and I had a drug and alcohol prevention kind of thing that you had to take to get the certificated teaching certificate for the state of California. And then after you did that what was like your next step like did you go straight to a school from there or did you kind of like look for a school that you'd want to work at? Well I was substitute teaching and at the beginning of the 1980s it was just after the Prop 13 time so there were a lot of cut packs starting to take effect and so the jobs were not out there but I became very highly regarded as a substitute teacher in the music departments in Sac City and in San Juan Unified School Districts where they knew that they could have me as their sub and actually get something musical done instead of just crowd management. Yeah. So what has been like your most, some of your most memorable teaching moments either in Sacramento or in Davis? Well there have been quite a few. I think in singling out my elementary school music program I was involved in a district honor choir and had my kids involved in that. Just being in the classroom in the inner city and inspiring kids to enjoy music and find fulfillment in music was fun. At Sacramento High School I was there from 1993 until 2003 and in the fall of 1999 I received a phone call and was invited to bring my choirs to Washington D.C. to sing in front of the White House for the commemoration of the 200th year of the occupation of the White House. So 200 years after John Adams moved into the White House as the first occupant we were there singing in front of the White House itself on the ellipse. It was amazing and that really made, it really of course lit up all of my students and their parents and with the help of Sacramento County and all the fundraising that the parents did we were able to raise $50,000 in four months so that we could go and do that. That's really amazing. When did you, what was the whole, I guess, how did you move from Sac High School? What made you move to Davis High? Well, the Sacramento City School District had, Sacramento High School in particular had received funding from the state for a number of years to do research to bring up test scores and that sort of thing and it was getting to the end of that point in time and the state was noticing that our test scores had not gone up but the money had been spent and so the state was threatening to come in and take over the school and instead the superintendent actually called me personally to ask me what I thought about the Visual and Performing Arts being the center of Sacramento High School and I was intrigued and so he and a couple of the other folks from the Visual and Performing Arts program Patrick Stratton was my drama teacher colleague there he's a resident here in Davis and we met with the superintendent Jim Sweeney and then with Kevin Johnson who was kind of spearheading this Kevin was a graduate of Sacramento High School in 1984 or something around that time so they came and spoke with us and then brought it to the broader community of the Sacramento High School staff and over time it turned into you're not doing it right we're going to change things and so that's when Sacramento High School was closed in January of 2003 and it was the second oldest high school west of the Mississippi Are you serious? Yeah Wow and I was the media representative for the staff in opposition to that closure after the superintendent came and invited me to be a part of it I said that's not what we need we need help but we don't need to be taken over so then I got a call from a friend of mine who said if you're interested there's a job available someplace that you might want to follow up on and so I took a day off and just drove to Davis and as I drove across the causeway it was a gray, rainy, nasty day and I drove across the causeway the skies cleared and the sun lit up and there was Davis glowing in front of me it was quite a thing and I had an opportunity to visit with David Murphy the superintendent that day and visit campus for Davis High School and I submitted my application and so I came here and Davis kind of saved my career because I was not going to go along with what the school district was doing for Sacramento High School and when you came to Davis as people may or may not know you were the director for the DHS Jazz Choir which I happened to be in until I graduated last year did you immediately go to jazz choir or were you part of like was there another choir that you were running at DHS the position that I auditioned for or that I interviewed for was a combined program of the Holmes Junior High Choir and the high school concert choir, jazz choir and essentials of music and so when I first was accepted to teach at Davis High School those are the classes I took jazz choir has been something that's been mine in my wheelhouse ever since and it was my first opportunity to teach junior high school since my student teaching it and it really woke me up to the enthusiasm of junior high kids and I've really grown to love them that's really great what are you going to do now since you're retiring this year do you have any plans for retirement well I have plans but can I go back to my excitement about Davis High School I've had the pleasure of collaborating with Gwyneth Bruce in presenting the musicals now for 10 years we started our first collaboration with Les Miserables we had the people that could do that at that time and we've worked together for 10 years and had a great run I'm really proud of all of the things that I've done in the theater program with Gwyneth I remember I saw Les Mis when it was performing and it was phenomenal I was only like I was super young at the time but I still was like how can a high school put something like this on the sets, the singing acting everything was just everything was just amazing but yeah and then my accomplishments with the junior high choirs my favorite moment the first year was when we went to Golden Empire Music Festival and my brand new little seventh grade choir just unchanged voices just a sweet little group of kids who are of course now in their late 20s at festival my friend and colleague Travis Rogers who was at the time directing the choirs at Napa High School was my clinician that day and he instead of coming up and talking to my choir and telling them as usual here's what you did really well here's what you could do better he just said I'd like to do a play by play will you sing that song again with Mr. Zinn and while you're singing I'll talk over it and play it by play and told them all the wonderful things they were doing how fine the accompaniment was Mr. Zinn's conducting was very clear your voices are sweet it was just the most amazing moment it's so memorable to me that's amazing and then jazz choir was invited like my high school choir from Sacramento we were invited to go to Honolulu to sing for Veterans Day 2006 and so that lit up the parents Davis High School and we went and did that and we've been on tours in jazz choir to New York, Chicago we've been to New Orleans four times now we've done Disneyland a bunch of times and it's just been really exciting to see how we can grow the show choir culture not just at Davis High School but now we're connecting with other schools in the area and I had a festival just this year we're about almost done but any take aways or any advice that you can give students that want to join choir or want to pursue a musical career or even more specifically want to become a choir teacher do you have any advice for them well become a part of something that's musical if you don't actually do it you're not going to achieve what you want to get there so be involved there's all kinds of opportunities in Davis I keep kidding my kids that there's nothing to do in Davis except you're just busy all the time people go away from school and then they go and do that and that and that oh private voice lessons then they go and take their lessons on piano and everything else so get musically involved and explore the possibilities open to you in musical theater work encourage your superintendent and the school board to implement the elementary school music program that was approved three or four years ago and then for becoming a teacher or going on into a career we went last year to New York you were on that trip and my former student Tia Altenay Sacramento High School was at that time in the cast for Aladdin playing on Broadway really amazing she went she said to the group after the performance it's not where you go it's where you're going she was given a scholarship to Brigham Young University as a young African American woman it might not have been her first choice but she got a free ride to go to Brigham Young University and so she went and got the training and then kept going and went where she wanted to go and ended up on Broadway and now she and another one of my former Sacramento High School students are in the new touring company of Hamilton and I'm going to go see them on May 12 that is amazing see like anything is possible everything is possible that's absolutely right well thank you so much Mr. Zan it's great seeing you again this has been in the studio thank you so much