U-46 band director gives American Grands its rhythm
Since picking up his first set of drumsticks in the fourth grade, Jon Mortensen hasn't been able to put them down.
"I just knew that percussion was my calling," said the 55-year-old band director at Kenyon Woods Middle School in South Elgin.
Mortensen has been a fixture with the American Grands Piano Festival since its inception 20 years ago.
The festival, which was held Saturday, brings together more than 400 pianists of all ages and skill levels to perform at the Elgin Community College Arts Center. Mortensen serves as the percussionist, percussion arranger and assistant conductor.
Though he will be retiring from education in two years, Mortensen plans to continue performing and teaching for as long as he can hold those drumsticks.
"I love the American Grands, and with any luck, I will be staying with it for a lot longer," he said.
Coming from a family of brass musicians, Mortensen decided to break slightly with tradition. His parents and siblings all played trumpet or trombone. "I have an identical twin brother who is a trombone player," he said. "I wanted to be my own individual."
Mortensen's professional career began at 13 when he performed in dinner theater orchestras in Rockford.
"I just loved playing professionally," he said. "I knew that without question that music was going to be my career."
A retired church musician, Mortensen also is a principal timpanist for the Rockford Symphony Orchestra and the Woodstock Mozart Festival Orchestra. He also has performed with concert artists, including Mannheim Steamroller, the Moody Blues, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, Martin Short and Rudolf Nureyev.
But he is most proud of his accomplishment conducting four ensembles at Kenyon Woods, which has one of the largest band programs in Elgin Area School District U-46.
"It's really refreshing to watch that growth between fifth grade and eighth grade," he said.
With American Grands, Mortensen gets to lead sets of 24 pianists ranging in age from 4 to 80 with varying skill levels.
"The nature of piano players is they never get to work with other people. They are just soloists," Mortensen said. "We have to transform them into an ensemble."
Mortensen is the foundation of the performance, said Larry Dieffenbach, American Grands artistic director and an adjunct faculty member at ECC.
"Jon is really the anchor of the performance," said Dieffenbach, who has worked alongside Mortensen for 20 years. "He provides just the entire rhythmic background for the pieces that we do."
He also is patient and encouraging with the younger players, Dieffenbach added.
"It doesn't matter the level of the music that we perform, he takes every piece just as serious as the next and is always giving 100 percent," he said.
Younger players often come to the first Grands rehearsal petrified, but once they go through a performance "they have that light bulb moment where they get what being a musician means ... and it all makes sense to them," Mortensen said.
"Once they have that moment they keep coming back," he added. "There is just so much support from the piano teachers that participate in the Fox Valley region."
His favorite part of the festival is performing. "Most of the music educators aren't just educators, they are also somewhere out there performing," Mortensen said. "It takes both of those sides to make me a complete individual."