Johnson High School lands new director of bands

BUDA — Joni Perez has been named Johnson High School’s newest director of bands after Joey Lucita announced his retirement in December 2023.

Perez has more than 20 years of experience in music education, but she began her musical journey early in life. While growing up, it seemed as though music encased her childhood. Her grandfather was the music minister at church, her grandmother a pianist — Perez began playing the piano at the young age of five — and her mother a singer.

“When it came time to decide if I was going to go into band, that was kind of a no-brainer for me because most everybody in my family played an instrument,” she explained. “My uncle was the band director and he helped me pick my instrument, the French horn. He helped start me as a musician.”

It wasn’t until she moved from her small hometown to Fort Worth, where she discovered more opportunities within the music world, that she realized she wanted to pursue music: “I wasn’t really sure in what way, but I knew that I wanted to have music in my life. I think it was probably junior or senior year that I realized I wanted to be a music teacher when my high school band director asked me to help teach a group of students one of their marching routines … That was my first opportunity to really teach on my own.”

From then, she taught private lessons during her undergrad at the University of Houston, where she was a principal horn player under the direction of legendary Eddie Green. Perez had many opportunities to gain unique experiences that would led her to become the educator today, such as spending four years touring with a Broadway show titled "Blast!", marching in drum and bugle corps, instructing the Blue Knights Drum & Bugle Corps, teaching the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps and the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps, until she became the assistant band director at The Woodlands High School (TWHS) in 2003.

Perez would spend 19 years at TWHS, where she would be promoted to the head band director role in 2010. TWHS Marching Band and Color Guard has been known as one of the top bands in Texas, as it won the 2013 Band of America Grand Nationals, and has consistently placed in the top 10 since 2010. The program was named the National Wind Band Honors Mark of Excellence winner and was a featured performer at the Midwest International Band & Orchestra Clinic in Chicago. Perez also became a part of a leadership company that held leadership workshops across Texas in 2019.

“I was in [the TWHS] position through 2022,” said the director. “When I left, that was so that I could become a consultant and a clinician across the state, also to broaden my reach with adjudication and leadership workshops … I feel like it’s actually made me a better teacher because I’ve been working with various types of students and communities and different teaching styles and approaches.”

It was in this role that she met Lucita, when he contacted her in 2022 and brought her in to work with the students. Since then, she has worked with JHS numerous times.

Perez noted that since her visit in 2022, she has noticed how eager the students were to improve themselves, stating that they were like sponges who absorbed the information she gave. This respect and willingness to learn was also apparent from the other staff, said Perez.

“You have this great group of students who are very capable, super smart and achieving at the highest level [and] you can tell they want that information. They want to develop their skills; they want to try to be the best they can be. And a staff that is willing to listen to all of those ideas and that information. It obviously creates a really powerful group,” Perez said.

She also praised the boosters, as she stated they are an integral part of any successful organization.

“When I think of Moe and Gene Johnson [High School] and just how much potential [there is and] the possibilities within that band program — because it’s so young — there’s still a whole lot left to be exposed and a whole lot left to be developed,” Perez said. “It’s exciting to me that they’re on a trajectory, exploring that potential, those possibilities and the excitement of where it could still go and where I hope that I can help continue to take it forward.”

Although she hopes to continue the legacy that JHS is building, she also prides herself in focusing on the development of students as not only musicians, but people, as she stated that being a good person is just as important as being a good performer. Perez believes that building a positive student-teacher relationship and camaraderie is the key to this. With the basic philosophy of “work hard and be nice,” her goal is to be the best they can be, but by achieving it as great people.

The future seems bright for Perez at JHS, but she also acknowledges the role in which she has taken for female students in the district, as she is the first female director of bands at a Hays CISD high school in more than 30 years: “I have an opportunity to be a role model in young girls’ lives and I take that really seriously. That’s a big honor for me. I want to infect my students in the most positive way. If I’m one of the only female role models in a big position like this in front of my students, then that’s a big deal and they’re going to pay attention to that,” Perez emphasized. “They’re going to be watching how I handle myself and that helps me be on top of my toes … Because I know that I’m the only female on the [band] staff at [JHS] right now, so I want to be that person for them in whatever way that I can.”

In the transition, she and Lucita have been working together to adjust both the students and Perez to the near future. She hopes to work part-time until her succession in July, as the beginning of the 2024 marching band season begins.