John Burn has been the Director of Bands at Homestead High School since 1991. As a Homestead student, he played trumpet in the Marching Band and was Drum Major his Senior year. Right after high school he played with the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum Corps. He continued his schooling, majoring in Music Education at UCLA and at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign where he earned his Master's in Music Education.

Ben Scharf joined the Homestead Music Department in 2020. While a student at Cupertino High School, he played in the Marching Band. He earned his undergraduate degree and teaching credential at the California State University at San Diego. He plays woodwind instruments, primarily the saxophone.

Daniel Piazza has been working with the band progam since 2015. A Homsetead Alumni, Daniel now the manages operations and logistics of the music programs at Homestead. Currently he holds the roles of Front Ensemble Caption, Electronics instructor, Sound Engineer, and Administrator for the Band program.

Shawn Gongwer began his journey with the Homestead High School marching arts in November 2005 as a member of the Cupertino Middle School Winter Guard. From the fall of 2006 to his graduation in 2010, he was an active member of the Homestead Color Guard, serving as a student leader his senior year.

Shawn began his independent marching career in 2009 with the Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets. Following his high school graduation, he was a member of the Santa Clara Vanguard world class corps for the 2010 season and a member of the Santa Clara Vanguard Winter Guard in 2011, receiving a gold medal at Winter Guard International World Championships.

Shawn’s teaching career began in the fall of 2009, joining the Mountain View High School staff as the weapon instructor under Diane Corbett, herself a former Homestead director. After graduating from Homestead and beginning to attend UC Santa Cruz, he was hired by Los Gatos High School to serve as Assistant Director under Frank De La Rosa from 2010-2012. In May 2012, Shawn got the call to return to Homestead as weapon tech under Jase Peeples. In the fall of 2013, Shawn was named Assistant director and was named director the following season.

While Shawn is deeply proud of everything the program has achieved over its storied history, he is most excited about what is still to come.

Dave Sankus has been the Director of Homestead Percussion since 2007. Prior to joining Homestead, he taught at James Logan and Leigh High Schools, in addition to the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum Corps. He has a bachelor’s degree in music from San Jose State and a MM in Percussion from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Kyle Wong has been instructing Homestead’s Snare line since 2014. Kyle is a 2009 graduate of Homestead, where he was named Fall MVP of the 2008 drumline. Kyle’s marching experience includes the Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets, The Academy, and the Blue Stars drum corps, along with POW Percussion and Pulse, where he won a WGI World Championship in 2014.

Alec Swink has been working with Homestead Percussion since 2008, and through his time has instructed Homestead’s Bass, Snare and Tom sections. A former Homestead student, Alec marched with the San Jose State University Marching Band and the Blue Devils B drum corps.

Raven Bautista began his color guard journey as a sophomore at Homestead HS. He continued to march at Homestead through his senior year.

After graduating high school, Raven joined the Blue Devils B Open Class Drum Corps where he performed for two years. Following his time at BDB, he marched the Blue Devils World Class Corps, receiving a silver and gold medal.

Raven began teaching at Homestead immediately following his graduation in 2017 and has been a member of the staff ever since.

Noah James Peters started his marching career in 7th grade at Ingrid B. Lacy Middle School in Pacifica, CA. He joined playing the trombone, but eventually was drawn into the color guard. He went on to march with the Terra Nova High School Marching Band as a 4-year color guard member, becoming head captain his senior year.

After graduating high school, Noah joined the Blue Devils B Open Class Drum Corp for the 2017 season and was a color guard captain for the 2018 season. He also marched in the first and only year of the Blue Devils B Winter Guard.

Noah began his teaching career in 2017 with the Archbishop Riordan High School Marching Band, where he stayed until 2019. He joined the Terra Nova High School Marching Band as Visual Caption Head in 2018, and transitioned to Color Guard Caption Head in 2019 and 2020. Noah began teaching at Homestead as a Flag Technician in the Winter of 2018 and has been on staff since.