New Lake View Band Director James Kirby sees great potential for a successful Lake View Band program.
Kirby, who is from Spartanburg and in his first year at Lake View,  brings experience to the program.
He was previously the band director at Union Christian Day school in Union and prior to that he was a long-term substitute assistant band director at Laurens high School.
Kirby grew up in a musical family. He father was a band director for 31 years, and he is in the South Carolina Band Directors Association (SCBDA) Hall of Fame. His mother taught 31 years as an elementary music teacher. He received his bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of South Carolina and his master’s degree in music education from Winthrop University. His instrument is the trumpet. Kirby is a member of the SCMEA (South Carolina Music Educator’s Association), SCBDA, and Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity.
When asked about his goals for the Lake View band this year, Kirby said he hoped “to put a respectable product on the field as well as on the concert band stage. A great goal for us this season would be to make the 1A state finals.”
Kirby doesn’t plan to make any major changes. “The biggest change is that we are only using two seventh graders in the high school marching band instead most of the group like it was previously. I prefer an older, more experienced group,” he said.
Their marching show theme is “Space.” The opener is Tale of the Comet by David Shaffer. The ballad is Jupiter by Gustav Holst (arrangement by Sandy Feldstein and Larry Clark), and  the closer is the first movement of Space Journey by Brad Ciechomski.