On January 30th, at 11:30 am, Sahuaro High School’s Guitar and Orchestra performed at the Mesa Convention Center in honor of the 2026 Arizona Music Educators Association Conference. The event was to be held in the North-South Ballroom of the convention center, where the students performed in honor of the 2026 Arizona Music Educators Association (AMEA) Conference.
“We are humbled by the continued recognition of Sahuaro’s students’ hard work. We look forward to representing the state for Guitar!” Phil Hemmo, Sahuaro High School Music Director, says.
The AMEA State Conference is a highly popular gathering of some of the top educators, clinicians, and administrators here in Arizona, where performance slots are highly competitive and somewhat difficult to obtain, making it very special for our students and school orchestra to earn a spot.
These High school music programs do more than teach guitar.— “They keep kids in school… Music education is a science. It is literature. It is mathematics. It is history. It is all those things, and it offers the opportunity for students to really understand how that fits together in the creative process,” says Hemmo.
When it comes to these programs, students tend to find themselves in different ways, as well as learn about their interests.
As the Pima County graduation rate has dropped below the Arizona State average, it is important to keep students involved, finding a source of community in these programs, leading them to have more enthusiasm about education.
“It’s fun, and it teaches you discipline as well…I even got accepted to the University of Arizona,” Sahuaro Student Daniel Way says.
Hemmo also says the school’s orchestra and overall music program guides/teaches students about pursuing their goals.
If he wasn’t working hard enough, Mr. Hemmo also hosts a guitar competition in early March. Hemmo has worked hard to direct this event, as it takes about a year of preparation. This will now be the 3rd year of the TUSD guitar festival, with over 200 students joining to perform solos and ensembles they’ve worked incredibly hard on for judges.
