David A. Jakes
 

A native of Fairfax, Virginia, Jakes received his Bachelors of Music in Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and his Masters in Music from the American Band College based at Southern Oregon University.  He is currently pursuing National Board Certification in Education, a status that is shared with less than 1 percent of America's teachers.

Jakes serves as Band Director and Music Department Chair at Francis Scott Key Middle School and as Band Director at Crestwood Elementary School, both located in Springfield, Virginia.  Jakes' responsibilities include teaching eleven band classes representing five different levels of student performance and overseeing the administrative duties of the Key Music Department.  He also coordinates and hosts the Greater Springfield Area Band, an ensemble made up of 6th grade band students from nine local elementary schools.  Prior to his 1995 appointment at Key, Jakes served as Assistant Band Director at Gar-Field Senior High School in Woodbridge, Virginia where he taught the Concert Band, AP Music Theory, and assisted with the Marching and Jazz Bands.  In addition, while at Gar-Field he also taught World History and 9th and 12 grade English to students with emotional disabilities.

Jakes' professional affiliations include the Music Educators National Conference, National Band Association, Virginia Music Educators Association, Virginia Band and Orchestra Directors Association, Tubist Universal Brotherhood Association, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and the American Federation of Teachers.

Jakes is an active musician in the Washington, DC area, performing with the Fairfax Wind Symphony and as principal euphoniumist with the Capital Wind Symphony, where he also serves as that ensemble's personnel manager.  His performance venues have included the VMEA conference at The Homestead, the National Building Museum, and the Millenium and Sousa stages of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  On March 26, 2000, Jakes conducted a 140 member men's chorus at the George Washington Memorial for the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Northeast Regional Workshop.

Jakes has extensively studied euphonium with Roger Behrend (US Navy Band), David Lewis (North Carolina Symphony), Dennis AsKew (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) and has also had lessons with Brian Bowman (US Air Force Band, ret.), Michael Colburn (US Marine Band), Daniel Perantoni (Indiana University), Skip Gray (University of Kentucky), and the late great Arnold Jacobs (Chicago Symphony).  He has studied conducting with John Locke and Robert Gutter (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) and Cynthia Hutton (Southern Oregon University).

Jakes' other performance instruments include trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba, flute, clarinet, saxophone, and percussion.  He has written two method books entitled "A Student Guide to Secondary Woodwind Doubling" and "A Student Guide to Secondary Brass Doubling", and is currently developing a manual for student timpani performance.  Jakes keeps current on a wide variety of other musical interests, including west african drumming, renaissance notation study, dalcroze eurythmics, and arranging and composing using the latest computer music applications.

In his spare time, Jakes' hobbies include reading, cooking, studying Italian, learning web design, collecting Thai and Khmer art, and of course, listening to as much music as possible.