Ever since a young age, Dave Pollack knew that he had a passion for music. He started playing the piano when was just five years old, and started learning to play the saxophone soon after that when he was nine. In high school, Pollack frequently participated in musical performances and performed at jazz festivals, winning several awards. Now, as the new band director at PHS, he hopes to spread that love for music to his students.

As the owner of Princeton Home Music Lessons, educating younger students has always been an important part of Pollack’s life. After high school, Pollack enrolled in William Paterson University where he started teaching a few private lessons. His passion for teaching music has grown since then.

“Teaching private lessons helped me know how great [jazz] was for me. I wanted to pass that on to other students, so they can have the same good experience that I did when I was in school.” Pollack said.

Pollack taught at The Lawrenceville School and the Cranbury School before becoming the PHS Instrumental Music Teacher. When he heard about the open teaching spot at PHS, he knew it was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.

“I know the history of the program really well because my students from Cranbury would go to Princeton High. I have known how great the program is for so long. Any director would want this job, not just me. I’m just lucky enough to have it.” Pollack said.

Guiding young students to discover music is something that Pollack finds important, especially because music is involved in many aspects of their daily lives.

“Music is everywhere, [even] when we don’t even realize it. Music [is] in movies. Music sets a mood if you go to a coffee shop,” said Pollack. “You go into an elevator, you go to a concert, music is everywhere, there’s so much of it”

Pollack focuses his teaching to give his students a taste of music from around the world. However, as the band director, jazz is something that Pollack finds the most important to teach among all types of music.

“This program is great because we focus on the jazz side, ‘jazz’ is just an umbrella term for so many different styles. If you only focus on classical music, you’re really focusing on Western European music from the 1600s through the 1800s,” said Pollack. “When you say you're doing ‘jazz’ music, you're really doing world music. We’re not only doing jazz from the early 1900s in the United States, but we’re also doing bossa nova music from South America, funk music, African music, and lots of different styles of music from all over the world from all different time periods under the umbrella of jazz. That’s why I think it’s so important.”

Moving from teaching middle school students to high school has been a welcoming change for Pollack. He finds satisfaction in teaching and discussing music at a higher level.

“The students are older, and just by that nature, more mature. We’re able to do higher-level things musically, but also I’m able to talk to them on a different level,” said Pollack.

After Pollack’s recent arrival, PHS Instrumental Music Teacher Joseph Bongiovi feels there have been many positive impacts with other bands as well

“I enjoy the humor. I think one big change with him is that we have fun in a more productive way, and then, you know, everybody feels like [they’re] part of the fun” said PHS Instrumental Music Teacher Joseph Bongiovi. “I feel like everybody, since he’s been here, has changed the level of enthusiasm. I think overall, having him here has been positive in terms of his energy. He’s brought new energy.”

As spring rolls around, Pollack is excited to begin the performance season. Several bands will be holding spring concerts in April and May.

“I’m looking forward to all the performances and opportunities that the kids have this year. We have you know, we did state prelims. Now we have state finals coming up, we have our own jazz festival featuring Tony Succar. We have a band dance. We have our spring concert. We have another concert and we have our Disney trip. So there’s a lot-jam packed into the spring.” says Pollack.

After two years of pandemic affected performances, both Pollack and his students are excited to return to real in-person performances. Performance opportunities in front of a live audience in a global pandemic have been limited. However, as the world get back to normal, more live performances are available for students.

“I’m always about performance opportunities and being able [to see] the fact that students haven’t had those last two years, that’s why I’m so excited to just see them on stage performing and see [how] the audience will react to them.” Pollack said.