Michael Fox had many stops on his journey before becoming the new band director at Fountain Hills High School. The Gainesville, Fla., native taught in the Southeast, Mexico, China and Brazil before coming to Arizona.

Fox attended the University of Florida and was a drum major for the university’s Pride of the Sunshine band. While taking classes, Fox assisted at his old high school and, after graduating in 2002, Fox got a job teaching band at both a middle and high school.

That experience came in handy when Fox started his tenure in Fountain Hills. Fox’s hiring was announced in the Oct. 1 Falcon Focus, and when he arrived there was also a new vacancy in the middle school band department. Fox taught at both levels for a few weeks, getting him acquainted with his future students.

“Prior to getting to Fountain Hills, I taught at two middle schools,” Fox said. “They had a bigger impact on me because I see myself in them. It’s the beginning of their musical journey, so I up my game for them.”

Fox’s own musical journey was a little unexpected. His three siblings, including a twin and younger sister, all joined the band while he played soccer. Eventually, he joined his high school band, and Fox knew what he wanted to do next.

“Because our high school was in Gainesville, one of our fundraisers was selling concessions at the (Florida) football games,” Fox said. “During halftime, my mom and dad would be selling, and I would be peering through the brick wall in the end zone, just watching the halftime shows.”

Fox spent 10 years teaching in North Carolina before taking a break from the classroom. That’s when Fox started to look internationally in hopes to utilize his minor in ethnomusicology.

Fox went to Mexico first and wrote papers for magazines while teaching at an international school. He continued to teach and write for magazines in China and Brazil. Fox was in China when the COVID-19 pandemic first began and lived through a very strict lockdown until he could leave for Brazil.

Fox is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and can speak Mandarin, but says he lacks a mastery of the language. Fox said teaching internationally helped him to break down lessons into the simplest versions of themselves. It was a challenge for him at first, as Fox says he is not a short and simple English speaker.

Now that Fox is in Fountain Hills, he has another challenge to deal with: Restarting a competitive band program.

The band performed at one football game this year, during the Falcons’ 38-16 home victory over Coronado. The band didn’t perform a halftime show, but they did march in and play stands tunes.

“The kids did a really good job prior to me getting here,” Fox said. “They had around 13 songs that they had been practicing on their own.”

The high school band has no seniors, but there were juniors and even sophomores who stepped up and acted as leaders. Fox said he was impressed, given the circumstances last year brought on by the pandemic and only having substitutes before he arrived this school year.

There are 21 kids in the band class now, and the instrumentation is very balanced. Every student in the class also does marching band, and Fox said he has everything he needs for a concert band, except maybe a French horn, Fox’s primary instrument.

Fox is hoping to revitalize the music program at Fountain Hills and has hopes to teach chorus and jazz band classes eventually. He also looks forward to his first concert, which might come as soon as this December.

The band will perform in this year’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and next year’s graduation ceremony. Fox is working to prepare his high school students for those performances.

For now, the band program is in rebuild mode, but Fox wants to “come out swinging” next year. Fox hopes his time at the middle school, and his prior relationship with the new middle school director, Greg Caruso, will establish a better pipeline from the middle to high school band programs and lead to more success in the coming years.