As he enters his second year of teaching at WS, Dustin Brandt has gotten his choir students up and ready to face the music.

Brandt is the newest addition to the WS music department family, moving into the somewhat hidden choir room with plans to fill the room up to the ceiling tiles with the best singing the WS choirs have to offer. Before he came to WS last year, Brandt was the choir teacher at Thoreau Middle School in Vienna. His passion for music is strong, and he names renowned lyricist Stephen Sondheim as his favorite composer.

It has been a short time since Brandt first arrived here, but he has already formed a bond with his musical students, and vice versa. “The students are highly motivated and accept any challenge,” said Brandt.

The biggest challenge he gave students happened halfway through November, when they got together with other music students to perform an entire Mass. The performance was a huge success for them, and Brandt would not soon forget it.

“The women’s choir did a very challenging Hebrew piece and the concert was performed entirely by students,” Brandt said. “We did it there for the acoustics and for the space. Anyone can see and hear from any seat in the house.”

Brandt has a unique style of teaching that differs from the choir teacher’s before him in order to help his choir grow and take away more from the class period. He makes sure to teach his students about music itself, not just singing whatever is printed on a sheet of paper. When they do get down to singing, Brandt focuses in and make sure that the choir sounds its best, putting in the most time and effort possible in order to get the best sound quality the students can create working together.

To say the least, Brandt has certainly found a good home in the little hallway where the WS music department is located.

“I love teaching here. I think this is a fantastic school and all the students here are great,” said Brandt. “I find myself bragging about how great the students are. I feel lucky when I hear other teachers complaining about their job.”