Leader of the band
- October 14, 2010
White Swan High School band teacher Jeff Chang began playing instruments when he was very young.
“When I was 6, I started to play the piano,” he says. “My mom wanted it. After two weeks, I quit.”
When he was 10, he picked up the drums and loved it. But after a month, the program was cut. Then, in middle school, he played the recorder.“When I first started the recorder, I played all night, and all day long,” he says.
White Swan band director Jeff Chang, in his fourth year of teaching, instructs his sixth period class last spring.
But by his freshman year of high school, he had moved on again. His mom bought him a saxophone.
And, he says, “I always wanted to play a sax.”
He admits he might have had an ulterior motive.
“I started in band and music because I wanted to impress girls,” he says. “For those of you that want to try that, it doesn’t work.”
How did he end up in White Swan?
Chang took the job without so much as visiting the school. He had applied at schools all over the state.
“I did the interview on the phone,” he says.
His first experience in White Swan was extremely different from what he was used to.
“Before school started, I flew into Seattle, I rented a car, and I drove over the pass,” Chang says. “I thought ‘This is beautiful.’ And then I passed Ellensburg, and all I saw was desert, desert and desert. I finally got to White Swan and saw horses at a gas station. I had mixed feelings. I decided it was adventurous and mysterious.”
Jeff Chang, the band director at White Swan High School, reviews the music for the song, "Celebration and Song," a class favorite.
Chang, 34, was born in Taipei, Taiwan. At 16, he moved to San Francisco, and lived there for 10 years. He has also lived in Boston and Baltimore.
He has two master’s degrees in music, one in jazz performance and another in jazz composition, which he received at the New England Conservatory.
He also has a bachelor’s degree in art from California State University, Hayward.
He lives in Yakima. This is his fourth year teaching at White Swan High School.
When he first moved here, he says, “I was also worried about being the only Asian, but that was soon to work in my favor. Students began to talk to me because of it. I was something new.”
Not only does he work as a band instructor at White Swan High School, but he also has released an album titled “It’s Not What You Think.”
All of the songs on the jazz album are ones he has written. It came out in 2009.
Chang has recorded other albums as well as many jingles and background music for pop singers, mostly from Taiwan.
But the 2009 album was the first one that was all his own.
“It was great, but to be honest it wasn’t as exciting as I thought,” he says. “It has always been my dream, though. It just wasn’t as exciting, and more expensive.”
Still, he says, “It’s my way to record my life. I’m glad I did it.”
Will Chang head back to the big city? Maybe someday.
Meantime, he says, “I have no plan to leave right now, and I’m not thinking that far ahead at this moment.”
Read article: