Kevin Sluder composer

Kevin Sluder is the orchestra director for Lewisville High School.

He grew up in Mansfield, Texas (just south of Arlington) and began playing the electric bass in the 7th grade, teaching himself. Unfortunately, there were no string orchestra programs in Mansfield and so Mr. Sluder had to join the drumline and play in the jazz band.

During his junior year, his band director bought a double bass for the program and he started doubling tuba parts in the top wind ensemble. In the meantime, he became bass drum section leader and made the All-Region jazz band.

Mr. Sluder spent his first year at the University of North Texas as a jazz bass major, but quickly decided it wasn't his calling. From there, he switched to music education (kind of on a whim, admittedly). During that time he sang in the Men's Chorus, played bass in the Repertoire Orchestra, and marched 2nd bass drum with the world-famous UNT Indoor Drumline at PASIC 2005.

Shortly after graduating from UNT in December of 2006, Mr. Sluder took a long-term substitute position at Durham Middle School and stayed on as the assistant director for the next four years, learning almost everything he knows about teaching strings from Alicia Walls. From there, he spent a year at Huffines Middle School as the head director before moving up to LHS in the fall of 2012.

The decision to switch majors into music education was one of the best decisions Mr. Sluder ever made. He didn't know it at the time, but teaching is what he was born to do and could imagine being anywhere else but Lewisville High School.

Mr. Sluder currently resides in a town to the northwest of Lewisville and that is all the detail that the nosey students need to know :). He has two dogs named Butters and Toby (pictured below). In his free time, Mr. Sluder enjoys writing/recording music, playing video games, and sleeping.