New Central High School and Junior High orchestra director is the first new face in 22 years

Michael Hanf is the new man holding the baton, leading the Central High School and Central Junior High orchestras.

Moving here in June, Hanf replaced longtime orchestra leader Steve Schaffner, who retired last spring after 22 years in the spot.

A Springfield, Mo., native Hanf taught three years in Rogers, Ark., and five years in St. Louis. He hadn't been to Cape Girardeau before, except to job shadow with Schaffner and house shop. "You go where the string jobs are, and usually only the big cities have them," said Hanf, whose program includes 160 students at both campuses.

Hanf earned a bachelor's degree in music education from Evangel University in Springfield, and while teaching in Arkansas, got a master's in violin performance from University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. Hanf first picked up a violin at age 5 and has been playing for 25 years.

"My parents say I chose it. My dad is an organist at church and mom is musical. She played in band at school and sings in choir. I think when I started, I started in the Suzuki program. I was always encouraged to practice and people wanted to hear me play. It wasn't probably until junior high that I heard people other than my mom say I was doing a good job," Hanf recalled.

By his senior year of high school, he knew he wanted to pass his musical knowledge on to others. "At the time, I think I liked the idea of it, but I knew it was a more stable income to teach," Hanf said. He did perform with the Springfield Symphony in college, and when he was doing his master's work, he played with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra and Northwest Arkansas Symphony.

He started teaching privately his senior year in high school at a music store. "I had 18 students every week. I needed a job and I didn't want to do fast food, so I thought, 'What can I do with the skills I have?' So someone suggested I start teaching lessons," Hanf said.

"The more I taught, the more it confirmed it was something I enjoyed doing. Why not get paid for something you enjoy doing?"

When he applied for the orchestra director post here, he was ready for a change. He put in an application at Cape Girardeau and decided to visit one weekend with his wife, Sarah and 3-year-old daughter, Morgan, just to see what it was like. "We were impressed by how welcoming the people were and the sense of community," Hanf said.

Succeeding someone like Schaffner who was such a mainstay has been a change for students and concertgoers. Hanf has introduced pieces students have never played before, and for the first concert of the year, which featured movie themes, silent clips of the films were shown on a screen while the music was performed.

"I don't think anyone had tried that before. Several parents commented that they enjoyed that as something different," Hanf said, adding that the next concert is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Richard D. Kinder Performance Hall.

Callie Callis, Maddie Siefert, Justin Emmenderfer and Vikas Rudrappa said they're enjoying having Hanf at the helm.

"I think he's a great addition to our orchestra. He keeps us organized and on top of things," Siefert said, adding Hanf has made goals and given students harder music to tackle.

"He's laid back, but structured," Rudrappa said.

In Cape Girardeau schools, orchestra starts in seventh grade. In high school, there is a freshman orchestra and a 10th- through 12th-grade group. While he's done things such as seating students according to ability rather than grade level, Hanf hasn't tried to remake everything.

"Of course, the way I run the class might be different. I may have different instructional strategies, but I also didn't want to change everything, so I've tried to use a similar assessment tool for their playing tests and I've tried to keep the same concert schedule," Hanf said.

A proposed change is creating an auditioned orchestra. Right now, children don't have to try out.

"Our music department is proposing a course change, and we'll see what happens. If that happens, it should start in fall 2014," he said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

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1000 S. Silver Springs Road, Cape Girardeau, Mo.