Professor David Rentz is the Chamber Choir director here at Chaffey. He has been an intergral part of the music program for over a decade.

By China Ang

I think the mark of a good teacher is the enthusiasm students give them with every class. As someone who has had more than their fair share of classes with Professor David Rentz, I can confidently say that his students are unmatched when it comes to their enthusiasm.

Professor Rentz’s students can be spotted around campus confidently and loudly singing their parts or at the mall doing the same thing just with shopping bags instead of backpacks. We spend time together. We like each other. And I think that’s because of the environment Professor Rentz has created around us in class.

A Wisconsin native, Professor Rentz grew his passion for music at an early age taking piano lessons in elementary school. He described himself as “not a very good piano student,” citing his unwillingness to practice and nervousness for performing as the reason. Rentz also started singing in a city choir and acting around the same time. His first role was Winthrop Paroo in “ The Music Man.”

“The lead child role,” he says.

His love for music continued on in middle school and high school in choir and band, playing the baritone saxophone or “the king of instruments,” as he aptly called it.

“Until I got my driver’s license, I carried it about a half a mile to school as often as I could. Which meant I also didn’t practice as much as I should have… There’s a theme there,” he jokes.

It was in choir, Professor Rentz really excelled. Under the mentorship of his “life changing choir director,” he started writing music and conducting in high school.

In college, Professor Rentz attended Washington University in St. Louis where he was not planning to be a music major but with a humanities scholarship, he was free to do more and more music which led him to conduct more as well.

“What was it about conducting that really clicked?” I asked.

“Well… It makes physical sense to me. It comes physically naturally… and I like studying scores and planning rehearsals more than I like practicing.”

Professor Rentz is not only the conductor for our chamber choir here in Chaffey but also co-directors with his wife, Dr. Alex Grabarchuk, at Claremont United Church of Christ and his orchestra based in Orange County, Orchestra Collective of Orange County, amongst many others.

He finished his academic career at University of Wisconsin-Madison, earning his M.M. and then the Yale University School of Music, earning a M.M.A and a D.M.A.

Years later, he makes his way out to the suburbs of Los Angeles in the city of Rancho Cucamonga, in the very school I attended after leaving the world of music behind.

I, along with a handful of students, came into Chaffey with very different majors looking for a way back to music, whether we knew it or not. Professor Rentz, for a lot of us, was our way back. His class and his patience and willingness to help each and every student reminded a lot of us why we loved music in the first place.

In Professor Rentz’s classroom, we found community again. We found our voices. We found our way back.

Humans of Chaffey: Professor David Rentz