Joe Macrae, Music School Principal

Meet the Team: Joe Macrae

Almost 2 years ago, Joe became Maxx Music’s School Principal.  As you will discover, Joe was not a stranger to the Maxx Music family, having worked with us as a guitar teacher previously.  His move into this role has transformed our Maxx Music schools, bringing a fresh vision and invaluable insight into our music schools.  Keep reading to find out more about him and his achievements.

A short biography

Joe finished his Bachelor of Music in Contemporary Performance at the Australian Institute of Music in 2016, and immediately came on board as a guitar and bass teacher at Maxx Music Castle Hill. Whilst teaching he spent his days completing his Master’s Degree in Music, which was centered around Jazz Fusion electric bass, double bass technique and live synthesized bass performance.

Alongside his academic journey, Joe’s performance experience as a bassist includes touring the East Coast from Melbourne to Cairns with an international Elvis show, sight-reading gigs and musicals, tribute shows and covers bands around New South Wales and original jazz gigs. As a long-term teacher at Maxx Music, he proved to be a very popular and valued teacher.   His success with students studying for Rockschool and Comprehensive AMEB guitar exams pays testament to his skill as a teacher.

In August 2022 Joe moved out of teaching and into a full-time role in the lessons school, which over the following months quickly developed into the role of School Principal. This role not only puts him in charge of policies and procedures within the lesson school, it also includes overseeing the teaching staff and organizing additional activities that supplement the core operations of the business. His academic, performance and teaching experience puts him in the perfect position to help guide Maxx Music’s lesson schools in their ongoing aim to offer the highest quality lessons, assuring a consistent high level of excellent quality continues teacher to teacher.

Joe’s achievements so far

After two years in this role Joe has made a lot of changes behind the scenes as well as more noticeable achievements.  Amongst other things he has been able to successfully reintroduce student recitals which had taken a brief hiatus during the Covid lockdowns and subsequent couple of years.  These now happen at the end of each term and provide a valuable opportunity for our students to perform for friends and family.  This has also put us in a much better position to be able to take advantage of public performance opportunities for our students such as The Orange Blossom Festival and Santa’s Arrival in Rouse Hill Town Centre.  He has streamlined our AMEB process resulting in better efficiency and results, whilst also reinvigorating Maxx Music’s School Holidays program. Moving forward Joe intends to continue to digitise the AMEB learning process to offer a more comprehensive AMEB learning experience, whilst growing Maxx Music’s music schools beyond just private music lessons into a centre for bands and ensembles in the Hills District.

Find out more about our School Holiday Activities or our Bands and Ensembles and how you can get involved.