Clinician Detail

Joel Denton - Biographical Information

Mr. Joel L. Denton has served as Director of Bands at Ooltewah High School for the past 36 years. Under his direction, the Ooltewah Band has achieved a national reputation for musical excellence. For his work at Ooltewah and his leadership for bands in Tennessee and across the nation, Mr. Denton received the Legion of Honor by the John Philip Sousa Foundation at the 2015 Midwest Clinic. He has served as Chair of the Fine Arts at Ooltewah from 1982 to present. He has been selected five times as the Ooltewah Teacher of the Year. The Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts has thrice honored him for outstanding teaching. His professional affiliations include NAfME, TNMEA, ETSBOA, Phi Beta Mu, NBA, ASBDA and TNBA. Mr. Denton currently serves as the TN State Chair for the NBA, and is a Past President of the Tennessee Bandmasters Association and the East Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association. He has served as the State Legislative Delegate and Advocacy Chair for TNMEA and serves on the Tennessee State Department of Education’s Fine Arts Student Growth Committee. He is active as an adjudicator, clinician, and consultant for bands throughout the nation. He has affiliation with Music for All/Bands of America, Drum Corps International, and has presented at regional, state, and national conferences including NAfME, TNMEA, ETSBOA, and several universities. Mr. Denton also works with band programs and other organizations on developing leadership and team building skills. To further impact music programs with this training, Music for All invited Mr. Denton to coordinate and create a Peer Teaching Division for the National Summer Symposium in the summer of 2017. Mr. Denton and Kerry, his wife of thirty-four years, have two children, Alex, who is the Assistant Director of bands at Cleveland High School, TN and Caroline, who is a Language Arts/Social Studies teacher in the Metro Nashville Schools.