At the end of the 16-17 school year, the Academy’s musicians said their goodbyes to the retiring Kent Erickson who had been the director of the sixth and seventh grade intermediate band, also known as the Charger Band.

     The Academy found a well-known, professional Albuquerque trombonist who will take over Erickson’s position. His name is Byron Herrington.

     Mr. Herrington’s first serious instrument was the trombone. He started the instrument in fifth grade at age 10. With an amateur musician as a father who played piano and the fiddle, Mr. Herrington had a heavy musical influence from a young age.

     “Music for me is the most exciting thing,” Mr. Herrington said when asked what drew him into music. “The huge variety of music, and of course, we have our favorites, but there’s just so much music, you know? There’s something for everybody.”

     Some of the music that Mr. Herrington likes to play includes symphonic orchestra, band music, jazz, and show tunes from musicals. He loves to play a large variety of music but those types of music are the ones that he is most drawn to.

     Mr. Herrington heard about the job opening at the Albuquerque Academy when he attended the end of the year concert and saw his friend, Kent Erickson, and learned that he was leaving the job. Erickson and Hovey Corbin, the director of the other bands at Academy, asked him if he would be interested in taking the job.

     Mr. Herrington had been retired from teaching at Jefferson Middle School for 14 years, co-conducting for the Albuquerque Junior Symphony for 11 years, and directing various bands and orchestras, for five years. Before, Mr. Herrington had also been thinking about getting back to teaching and decided that this job would be perfect.

     Mr. Herrington is enjoying teaching here at the Academy. “The band class is terrific, there’s a lot of great kids, and everybody at the school has been really nice and helpful about welcoming me and helping me fit in,” he said. “It’s a very nice climate and situation. There’s plenty of help if you ask questions so, overall, a great experience so far.”