Rock Band is among the Summer Session classes on offer in Burnaby Schools where students get the chance to learn a new skill and have fun.
The popular class was held at three locations this year for students going into Grades 6 to 8.
Teacher Mark Pepe taught Rock Band at the Burnaby North Secondary site.
For quite a few of the students, it’s their first time picking up a guitar. For some of them, it’s their first time picking up an instrument at all. It’s neat to see how accurate their skills get in just over 10 days.”
Matteo Gutierrez, who will be going into Grade 8 at Alpha Secondary, is one of the students who went into the class with musical experience. He plays the trumpet, piano and guitar.
“I wanted to give myself the opportunity to try other instruments. I’ve got many important skills from this class, like how to collaborate with other people to make good quality music.”
Fellow student Brontë Petley is a vocalist in musical theatre. The Grade 6 student at Capitol Hill Elementary credits the Rock Band class with teaching her how to hear music in a whole new way.
“I sing a lot, so I knew that there was a lot of hard work that went into singing, but I never really noticed the instruments. Now when I’m listening to a singer like Taylor Swift, I appreciate that there’s a whole band that practises for months, so now I’m much more appreciative of that. And now when I hear songs, I think ‘that drum beats really hard, I never noticed it.’”
Brontë learned how to play the drums during the Rock Band class from Ryana Ho, who is going into Grade 11 at Burnaby North.
“At first, I was kind of afraid about where to start but I just taught Brontë the basics about how to play a simple beat and simple song. From there I taught her the song that we performed, and she’s a really fast learner and picked it up in a week.”
Ryana is one of four youth from Burnaby North gaining work experience credit at high school by volunteering as a Teaching Assistant for the class. The fifth Teaching Assistant took an elementary Summer Session Learn to Play Guitar class from Pepe in a previous year and wanted to volunteer in Rock Band for the fun of it.
For several students, getting the chance to work with Pepe has been exciting. In addition to teaching at Burnaby North, Pepe is an opera singer with numerous qualifications, including having studied opera in Italy. He has been part of the Vancouver Opera Chorus since 2017.
“All of that experience that I have in opera from learning all the music, being part of the whole process, being able to perform at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on a regular basis, really helps me teach these kids. Because when I see something that they need, I know exactly what they need to do because I have been through that before.”
For Pepe, one of the special things about the Rock Band class is the chance for children to explore music and musical instruments.
“I think it’s very important that students get an opportunity to just play around with music. They need a place to do that and Summer Session provides that.”
Registration for Summer Session 2026 is expected to open next April.
Posted July 2025