Zachary Martin is West Boca Vanguard’s new student teacher who will be mentored under director Larry Shane for the fall semester. He was born and raised in sunny Palm Beach County, Florida, but has since gone around the state for his education after high school! Mr. Martin attended Florida State University, where he was originally placed in the bachelor’s program in music performance, but later transferred to music education in his Junior year of university. In terms of his instrumental background, Mr. Martin is primarily trained in playing the bassoon, but has experience with electric bass guitar and piano.
Interestingly, Mr. Martin’s path into the music education program is something that he initially had not considered! When applying to FSU, aiming to study music engineering, he made a few errors in his application that caused him to be placed in the wrong major. What started as an error led to his passion for music education, inspired by his parents and grandparents, who were teachers. “My favorite memory from music school was my whole experience of my 2 years in the music education program,” noted Mr. Martin when reflecting on his years at FSU.
As Mr. Martin has been working with the West Boca Vanguard, he has yet to experience many activities in our program, which he looks forward to! Mr. Martin mentions that working with our program has been great and his favorite part of it has been “seeing the variety of different band options like pep band, concert band and jazz band. Students are allowed to explore multiple different instruments and types of music.” Mr. Shane, West Boca’s band director, claims that he has had an extremely positive experience through helping Mr. Martin. He mentioned how he loves working with student teachers and using his years of experience to “pay it forward to the next generation of directors.”
Outside of music, Mr. Martin is a dedicated football fan, specifically towards the Buffalo Bills. Not to mention, he has a great interest in comic books and video games! However, music remains one of his central passions in his life. In fact, Mr. Martin has an interest in playing in a rock band at a music festival someday.
As his time at West Boca for the fall semester continues, Mr. Martin has been attending the Vanguard’s many rehearsals and performances, and looks forward to what the rest of his student teaching experience will bring to him. The Vanguard is excited to get to know him more and see his growth in teaching!
