Alan F. Mitchell
1950
-
Alan Mitchell, trombonist and
conductor, retired in 2017 after teaching music for forty-five years, over
thirty-five of those as a band director at two academies and a university in
the Seventh-day Adventist school system. He started his career in the public
school system in southern California, where he taught at both the elementary
and high school level and completed it at Andrews University, where he taught
for thirty years.
Alan was born in Maryland,
the younger of two sons of Albert and Helen Northrup Mitchell. His father was employed by Honeywell
Corporation, and the family moved frequently because of his work, living in
Pennsylvania, California, and Minnesota. Mitchell recently talked about how he
became interested in music and his training as a musician:
We
were living in Pennsylvania when the movie The
Music Man came out. My brother, John, had started trumpet and after seeing
the movie, which featured the song, “Seventy-Six Trombones,” there was only one
instrument, the trombone, I was interested in. I was in bands from that point
on and in a really good band in Pasadena [California]. When we moved to
Minnesota in the middle of my junior year, which I didn’t want to do, they had
a good music program, so I continued playing in band until I graduated in 1967.
I
enrolled at California State University at Long Beach as a music
major with trombone as my performing area, unsure of what I wanted to do. This
uncertainty continued to the middle of my senior year when I briefly switched
to pre-medicine. That got me far enough
out of the music program so that I realized music was really what I wanted to
do, and I completed a music education degree.
Mitchell began his music
career in 1972 as a teacher in the elementary school district in Fountain
Valley, California, where he taught for one year. When his brother, who had
been building a band program at John W. North High School in Riverside since
1970, accepted a position at another school in 1973, Alan was invited to follow
him as band director and also direct the orchestra program. Through their
combined efforts and time at the school they developed an in-depth band
program that included strong concert, jazz, and parade ensembles as well as
tall flag and drill team units. During this time he completed an M.A. degree at
CSU at Long Beach.
Mitchell married Nancy A. Allen, a saxophonist and music major who came
from a musical family, in 1974 in a Presbyterian church. Although she had attended Adventist schools
when younger they weren't attending any church on a regular basis after they
married. They responded to an offer for a free Bible and after a person, by
coincidence a former professional musician, delivered the Bible, they took
Bible studies and joined the church at the beginning of 1979.
Nancy's brother was teaching at Platte Valley Academy in Nebraska, and when
a music position at the school opened within a week after they had joined the
church, he encouraged Alan to apply.
Mitchell would later talk about the transition from directing a large
band program at one of the outstanding high schools in populous southern
California to being the music teacher at a small academy in the farmlands of
Nebraska and how his career unfolded after that:
Within two or three weeks after we
applied, we flew out to the school, interviewed, and accepted the job. The
change was a shock in so many ways. I still remember being surprised when at
the first faculty meeting of the year, I learned about assigned duties I would
have in addition to directing both the band and the choir. It was quite an
adjustment. I remember particularly, however, the pleasure I had at one point
in working with Moses and Charlene Chalmers, who assisted with handbells and piano.
By the time I had been at Platte
Valley for five years and was doing everything in the department, I had almost
decided to get out of teaching, feeling that the possibility of advancing in
the Adventist educational system was rather remote since I had not come up
through that system and nobody really knew about me and my previous experience
in the public school system. I was also troubled by the leadership of the
school at that point.
Fortunately, my brother-in-law, who
had been teaching at Platte Valley, was now teaching at Auburn Academy in
Washington and when a position opened there in 1984, I applied for it. When it
was offered to me, we accepted. It proved to be a great experience and in my
last year there, the band successfully auditioned to perform at the Western
International Band Clinic annual convention to be held in Seattle in November
1987. In the spring of that year, however, I applied for the band position at
Andrews University and was hired. I
regret not being able to direct the Auburn band when it performed that fall at
the convention.
Mitchell taught at Andrews University for thirty years. His responsibilities included direction of
the Wind Symphony, coordinating music education courses at both the
undergraduate and graduate levels, and overseeing the graduate music program.
His groups performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, and he
also served as a clinician, guest conductor and adjudicator throughout
the U.S.
He is pursued a D.M.A. degree
in wind conducting/music education at the University of Cincinnati - College
Conservatory of Music. His major conducting professors included Eugene Corporon and Mallory Thompson. He has also taken
additional conducting studies from Michael Haithcock,
Ron Johnson, John Whitwell, and Allan McMurray.
Mitchell has professional
memberships with the Music Educators National Conference, now the National
Association for Music Educators; College Band Directors National Association;
and the International Adventist Musicians Association. He is an honorary member
of the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association.
In 2013 He was awarded the
Michiana Outstanding Music Educator Award, the only recipient of the seven
chosen to receive the honor who teaches in higher education in that region. The
award was presented at a luncheon in Plymouth, Indiana.
His wife, Nancy, completed a
B.S.in elementary education and English in 2000 at AU. They have three
children, Erin, Diane, and Eric, all of whom played instruments when in school.
Erin is a nurse, Diane a social worker, and Eric, who is in law school,
continues to be involved in computer-related musical activity.
At the time of his retirement
the music department presented Mitchel with a Bach 42B trombone, a professional
instrument with an F-attachment. He observed at that time that
”I’ve already been to heaven,” referring to his years at AU. He will continue to teach music lessons and do
substitute teaching at area schools while pursuing an ongoing interest he has
had in photography.
ds/2017
Sources:
Interview with Alan Mitchell, October 2012; “Music Program History, A, John W.
North High School, http://www.northbsr.com/history.html,
2012, 1; California Marriage Index, 1960-1985; Central Union Reaper, 9 August 1979, 6; North Pacific Union Gleaner, 17 December 1984, 21; Biography at
Andrews University music department website, 2012; “Alan Mitchell Receives
Award,” http://www.Andrews.edu/news/2013/09/Alan_Mitchel_
Receive.html; Andrews University Alumni Directory, 2003, 307; “I’ve already been
to heaven,” Andrews University Focus, Spring 2017, 15; personal knowledge (I
have known Alan as a friend and colleague for three decades).