A love for music leads to Carnegie Hall
By MARISA MATA, Student Writer
“There I was, standing on the stage, performing in Carnegie Hall,” said Larry Honda (1977).
“When I was younger, I didn’t think it would be a career or anything like that… I loved playing, I just wanted to play.”
Before performing at Carnegie Hall and with the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Honda was a beginning clarinet player in his elementary school’s band. The rush of performing, in addition to the reaction of the audience as the group played the famed ‘Hello Dolly’, made Honda fall in love with playing music. He followed this love to Fresno State, where he played in both the Bulldog Marching Band and jazz band, which gave him the opportunity to play at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
Honda began teaching part-time in Clovis after graduating with his degree in music education. He soon joined a jazz band and moved with them to Los Angeles.
“I played the saxophone and the woodwinds. We were very serious; we would practice hours a day, for five or six days a week. We moved to Los Angeles to get noticed.”
In Los Angeles, Honda performed with the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra and at the Hollywood Bowl with big band leader Woody Herman. He also did a tour of the West Coast with the New York City Ballet Orchestra. When Honda wasn’t performing, he worked as a substitute teacher, which is how he met his wife.
“We were married within a year, and that changed the course of things. I decided to leave the band and start my masters at USC. I began a full-time teaching position at the USC performing arts magnet school, and I was teaching kindergarten through ninth grade.”
In 1993, Honda moved back to Fresno with his wife and 4-year-old daughter, after accepting a teaching position that allowed him to teach at Buchanan High School and Alta Sierra Middle School. After four years Honda began teaching at Fresno City College, where he has remained for the last 20 years.
In addition to teaching at Fresno City College, Honda has been selected to teach middle school and high school honors bands in Tulare and Fresno County, has been an adjudicator for music festivals and teaches at La Sierra Creative Arts Camp. Honda was awarded the College/University Music Educator’s Award from the Tulare/Kings Counties Music Educators Association in 2009 in recognition of outstanding achievement.
“I felt very honored and humbled…I think they wanted to recognize me [for what I’ve done over the years]. And I’m not the only one that does those things, there’s a number of us; so I was surprised too. I was humbled that they noticed [me], they didn’t have to.”
Since being back in the Valley, Honda has continued to do big performances — he went to France with the Fresno City concert band to perform in memorial concerts for the invasion of Normandy during World War II, and in 2013 he was asked to do a solo with the concert band for a festival at Carnegie Hall.
“To be able to do that with our students meant more to me than playing at the Hollywood Bowl with Woody Herman. It’s a special thing when you can play with your students in something like that.”
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