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In tenth grade, Miami Palmetto High School senior Irene Lee joined the marching band. Today, she’s the drum captain. As drum captain she organizes events and the drum line.
The marching band has 50 members, including 30 who play instruments and 20 members of the color guard.
“During marching season, we typically had three practices a week with marching band, and one sectional for drum line,” she says. “I found things to assign to them to learn.”
Lee plays the marching snare drum. She joined when a friend mentioned the band needed more members. She ended up playing the bass drum and later switched to the snare drum.
“I was willing to join, because it gave me additional opportunity to play, to perform more,” she says. “I made more friends, and I had a good time. That’s why I stayed. Because of all of those good feelings, I wanted to become drum captain, so I could share that.”
She’s also been hosting promotional events like percussion camps for prospective drum line members.
“It’s two hours after school where we go over marching basics,” she says. “It’s mostly a recruitment thing.”
After football season, the band switches to a pep band. They play for events like the blood drives, or pep rallies.
She is also the pianist for jazz band.
“We play at different events that the activities director tells us to play at as well as participating in the various evaluations the music department has,” she says.
Lee has been playing piano since fourth grade. She competes at The Fair and typically earns first place ribbons.
“I’ve won it at least three times,” she says. “Two of the three are from high school.”
She recently won first place in the Music Teachers Association Composition Contest in the senior level. And she will play in the Honors Recital on March 15.
Lee is the theory and composition instructor for the Pinecrest City Music Project. She also teaches piano to high school students for PCMP.
She plans to major in Music Education in college. She’s been accepted into Florida State University, the University of Central Florida, the University of South Florida, Florida International University, and the University of Miami.
She’s currently taking music theory three from Juilliard. She previously took music theory one and two.
Lee is also a teacher aide for Advanced Placement Music Theory at Palmetto.
She volunteers at Blooming Minds Miami, a mental health awareness organization started by a friend with other students. Lee says they started it to help others because they had suffered from mental health issues.
“Our main goal is to spread mental health awareness,” she says. “To spread correct information. We started during COVID. I do research for their posts, and I do research for the podcast questions. We develop questions for the interviewer, so we can ask good questions and I also sometimes help make the questions as well.”
She has volunteered at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens in the Conservation Students Scholars program since 2019.
“Sometimes we set up informational tables and we have graphics and to discuss different environmental issues,” she says.
Topics include why we shouldn’t use palm oils, and the Million Orchid project.
Before COVID closed church services, she used to be in the choir and played the handbells and piano for the Chinese Baptist Youth Fellowship.
At school, she was the vice president of activities for Mu Alpha Theta and the treasurer of the Science National Honor Society, and is currently the treasurer of the Asian Culture Club.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
