Faculty Profile: George Weber

This week, we feature a member of the Arts faculty, George Weber, Director of the Music Program. George holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in Music and has been teaching at CRMS since 1996.

“The first year I taught music at CRMS, the new headmaster and I did not know what to expect. I waited in my classroom and when my first students arrived I asked them what they wanted to learn and they unanimously replied guitar, so I taught them how to play guitar. I have a symphonic and jazz background and education, but I had also played lots of jazz, folk, rock and pop music, so I was very comfortable teaching these students.” Weber draws on the musical breadth he has absorbed as a former member of a renowned bluegrass band with Pete Wernick and The Live Five, his own jazz ensembles, and his work in classical orchestras as a percussionist. His beginning-music classes cast a wide net, enticing students to play multiple instruments and bring in their own music. “I want kids to buy into music, because if they like the music they’re playing, they are more willing to study technique and theory that will enable them to advance and have the option of playing advanced music, exploring songwriting, recording and engineering and CD production.”

Beyond music classes, Weber has led all-school sing-alongs that are as likely to feature Mexican folk tunes as Wilson Pickett’s Mustang Sally. Weber has also been director of residential life, a canoe instructor and wilderness leader. He has led homestay trips to the Navajo Nation and now leads hut-to-hut trips in the fall and day hiking in Arches and Canyonlands National Park in the spring. For the past few years, during Interim he and fellow faculty member AO Forbes have led a week-long songwriting workshop.

“What this school has to offer teenagers is incredible,” he says. “Most graduates say, ‘I wish I had done more of this, more of that.”’

Weber himself has continued learning at CRMS. “This school has broadened my experience (indoors and out), has helped improve my teaching, and challenged me to excel.”