Ryan Adair, band director for Nebo School District at Salem Hills High School, will join band directors from across the country on January 1, 2022, in the annual Pasadena Tournament of Roses® Rose Parade.
A custom-designed animated float will lead a “marching band of band directors” up to 300 strong from across the country. The Michael D. Sewell Memorial Foundation, based in Pickerington, Ohio, is the sponsoring organization behind the project. The foundation was created to recognize and carry on the work of the late Mike Sewell, who dedicated his life to the school and community music programs in Pickerington and the Central Ohio area for more than 38 years.
The parade entry will convey the theme, “We teach music. We teach life.” The extraordinary dedication and accomplishments of band directors are well known to their students, to parents, and to school teachers and administrators. No matter where they teach and work—public and private schools, colleges and universities, the military, or community bands—dedicated music educators and leaders work long hours to not only teach and direct music, but to teach life itself. Students’ lives in particular are
positively changed by a motivational leader who taught, inspired and mentored them.
Before coming to Salem Hills, Ryan Adair spent four years as the director of bands at Desert Hills High and middle schools in St. George, Utah, as well as serving on Salem Hills’ marching band staff for eight years. Throughout his teaching career, Adair has instructed marching, percussion, jazz, and concert ensembles and has had various opportunities to work as an arranger/composer.
Ryan earned his Bachelor of Music with an Emphasis in Commercial Music from Snow College (‘16) and his Master of Music in Music Technology from Southern Utah University ('19). The coursework he studied included music education, composition and audio production. While a student at Snow, he served as a program coordinator for the Horne School of Music's annual jazz workshop, the New York Jazz Symposium.
Ryan regularly gigs professionally as a trombonist in the pop, jazz, classical, and novelty ensembles including party bands, concert bands, and polka bands across the state of Utah.
Ryan has been married to his wife Caitlyn for seven years, and together they have two sons.
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