Twality Middle School Orchestra Director Wins PYP’s Teacher of the Year Award

Posted on April 27, 2017

Twality Middle School Orchestra Director Dave Lewis was awarded PYP’s 2016-2017 Eugene Kaza Music Teacher of the Year. The Eugene Kaza Award, named in honor of an alumnus and music teacher who helped shape today’s PYP with his advanced orchestra classes, celebrates music teachers of Portland Youth Philharmonic musicians who go above and beyond to inspire, educate, and instill excellence and dedication.

Mr. Lewis’ award will be recognized from the stage at PYP’s Spring Concert on Sunday, May 7, 2017 at 4:00 PM in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. He was nominated by PYCO musician Aaron Woodruff.

Aaron’s nomination:

When Mr. Lewis arrived at my school, the entire environment around orchestra changed. Under our previous teacher, students in even the advanced orchestra were unable to tune their own instruments, and were progressing at a snail’s pace. In the middle of last year, our teacher left, and Mr. Lewis stepped in. Enthusiastic about orchestra and ready to teach, he took the mediocre-at-best program that our previous teacher had run and turned it into something to be proud of again.

Aaron Woodruff and Dave Lewis

Since he started teaching in the middle of last year, the size of the orchestra class has increased enormously. In fact, he says we may have to add more class periods next year to accommodate all the new enrollees. With his “pops concert” where we play music from movies to the video of those movies, similar to the Oregon Symphony film concerts, and his excellent choice in music that is difficult enough to challenge but not too difficult as to be impossible, the orchestra program has really come to life. The beginning orchestra has far surpassed where the beginning orchestra of two years ago was, and, by numbers, orchestra is now more popular than band. Mr. Lewis inspires students on an individual level to put expression and feeling into their music, and pushes everyone to do as well as they can.

He relates to and encourages students personally to persevere and become the best musicians they can possibly be. Recently, he has introduced the SmartMusic program, which allows him to give individual feedback on students playing without wasting valuable class time.He also holds Sight Reading Wednesdays most weeks to help keep reading skills sharp and practiced. The atmosphere he creates in the classroom is a do-anything feeling that everyone in the room can pick up on. When he asks if a piece is too hard, the answer is always a chorus of “no”s. His love of music shows in his teaching and truly inspires everyone to succeed. He is, without a doubt, the best orchestra instructor I have ever had the pleasure of being taught by and he has revolutionized our orchestra program.