Starting his ninth year teaching, Ben Clemons has embarked on his first year teaching at Lemont High School. Previously teaching at Plainfield South, Clemons taught AP Music Theory and directed the marching band. This year, Clemons continues his musical teaching as he takes on directing both the marching and jazz bands, while also directing the pit orchestra for the upcoming spring musical.
The LHS marching band has achieved many accomplishments in the past few years, including their second-place Class 3A wins at the Illinois Marching Band Championship in 2021 and 2022. With the marching band being LHS’ largest competitive team, Clemons now joins a successful part of LHS as he starts his new journey.
“This is a really successful and storied band music program. The opportunity to come here was a really exciting one because there’s so much history of success and great things that have happened in the band program for several years now going back like 30, plus years,” Clemons said. “The opportunity was just too good to pass up and I’m really happy to be here.”
Before pursuing teaching, Clemons found his passion for music while participating in his high school’s music program.
“I learned a lot about myself and how much music was important to me,” Clemons said.
Clemons’ experience with music in his high school years led him to pursue teaching others about the importance of music.
“My own high school music experience was really inspirational to me. I had really good band directors. I wanted to do for others what they did for me because I had a really good experience in my high school program,” Clemons said.
Clemons believes the connections formed through learning and teaching music are a crucial part of the art and why he teaches it.
“The relationships that you can build with others too, that was a special part of [teaching music]. So that’s really why I wanted to [teach]. It was my own experience that I wanted to provide for other people,” Clemons said.
From watching the marching band’s halftime performances to the upcoming spring musical, LHS can’t wait to see Clemons’ journey unfold.
