MusicAlliance: Bio for Franklin Adams

FRANKLIN ADAMS

Franklin D. Adams, Jr., has been a music educator for 21 years with experience in both public school and parochial school settings. He enjoys sharing his passion for music with the students he works with and in helping them to discover the positive force that music participation can be in their lives. Adams is a nationally published composer of music for school bands (published by C. Alan Publications). His music has been performed nationwide and as far away as Los Angeles.

Mr. Adams received his music education degree from Anderson University where he was named to the National Dean's List and was inducted into the Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society. While a student at Anderson, Adams was mentored by noted orchestrator/arranger Ronn Huff. Mr. Adams has taken Graduate level coursework in the areas of music technology and band instrument repair at Baldwin-Wallace College and Kent State University, and holds a teaching license in Ohio for music K-12. In addition to currently serving as band director at Gesu School (University Heights), St. Ann School (Cleveland Hts.), and St. Thomas More School (Brooklyn), he has served as the band director of St. Gabriel School in Concord, Ohio for 17 years. Under Mr. Adams' direction, the St. Gabriel band program experienced nearly 10 straight years of growth, going from the 20 students that Adams inherited when he first started teaching there to 179 band members. As the band enrollment grew, Mr. Adams was able to expand the St. Gabriel program from 2 bands to 5 bands: a 4th Grade Band, 5th Grade Band, 6th Grade Band, 7th & 8th Grade Concert Band, and 7th & 8th Grade Jazz Band (which has performed at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for the past 4 years, and which is the only parochial middle school jazz band to participate each year in the Lakeland Jazz Festival's Tomorrow's Stars Concert).

Adams, who helped to establish MusicAlliance in 2004, serves as the MusicAlliance Honor Band Program Coordinator and is director/conductor of the MusicAlliance Summer Honor Band I, Christmas Honor Band, and Honor Jazz-Rock Band (which he co-founded). His other duties with MusicAlliance include serving as the designed and webmaster for the organization's website, designing the forms used by MusicAlliance, interviewing prospective new teachers, organizing and performing fund-raising activities, and conducting faculty in-service presentations.

After spending the first four years of his teaching career as a public school band and general music teacher in southwest Ohio, Mr. Adams moved to Cleveland. During his many years of teaching in area parochial schools, which began as a teacher for Musical Youth (a predecessor of MusicAlliance), Adams has been honored with numerous awards including Highest Band Enrollment Percentage Award (for St. Gabriel School), Low Drop Award, Principal's Commendation Award, and Positive & Professional Teacher of the Year awards. He also founded and served as the director of "Phresh Phusion" a jazz-rock ensemble featuring students from high schools throughout Northeastern Ohio, served as the pep band director for Lake Erie College, and has performed in several local community concert bands including the Euclid Orchestral Winds and the Tri-C Civic Band. Adams holds professional membership in the Music Educators National Conference, and the Ohio Music Education Association.

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