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20 making a difference: Music

If the ripple effects of music in our lives are immeasurable, then the splash that Nick Olmos makes as a second-generation music teacher for the Bakersfield City School District will make waves for students in years and years to come.

The musical roots in the Olmos family run deep — Olmos’ father, also Nick Olmos, retired from BCSD in 2004, after 29 years of teaching music.

In this familia, each member plays some type of instrument — father and son each play the trumpet and are skilled in a host of other instruments as well; Carmen, the wife of Nick and mother of “Nick 2,” as he’s sometimes called, plays violin as do the Olmos daughters/sisters Leticia Halcon, and Alicia Lifquist, a kindergarten teacher at Roosevelt Elementary. Even Silvia Olmos, Nick’s wife, wants to take up the guitarron.

And though mastering an instrument is certainly not a requirement to be a member of the Olmos family, music remains an integral part of family life.

“Music is a big part of who we are, something we’ve all always done together,” said Olmos, 26, who took over his father’s teaching position with BCSD and now instructs children at College Heights, Munsey and Casa Loma, and also this year, teaching mariachi for the Delano Union School District and at Bakersfield College. “I’ve been playing since I was 3 1/2, when my father gave me a pocket trumpet, only 5 inches long.”

The Olmos family also plays mariachi for the group, Tenampa, which performs for private engagements and parties.

Taking the impact music has made upon him and transferring it to the students he teaches — and for many, also to their Spanish-speaking parents — is less and less like a job, according to Olmos.

“When I get up there to teach, everything else slips away,” he said. “I really enjoy teaching — and we’re always busy, that’s for sure — but it really doesn’t feel like work.”
For those around Olmos since taking over the musical baton for his father, the son is more than doing the family name proud.

“Mr. Olmos is a terrific role model,” said Michael Stone, coordinator of the district’s Visual & Performing Arts department. “He’s a professional, nurturing teacher to the kids and has just a wonderful level of enthusiasm — he is just the best.”

But perhaps the best reviews Olmos hears are in the stories passed on to him about students who are truly affected by music.

“On the academic side, we would all love it, of course, if all the kids who take music were to improve in school and many of them do, but not all of them,” Olmos said. “For some kids, music is a way to get them excited about something at school and for some kids, that’s an improvement, too.

“I’ve had a teacher come up to me and tell me that one of her students only comes to school because he wants to be in music — but she was happy, because if he comes to school, that’s a start.”