FRONT ENSEMBLE STAFF
RILEY SMITH
Front Ensemble Caption Head
Riley Smith is an active percussionist and educator in Arizona. He has been teaching since 2016 where he got his start at Hamilton HS, and has since gone on to teach at a number of other high schools in the valley including Combs, Agua Fria and others. He is currently on staff at Campo Verde HS as the percussion co-caption head (2020-present) , on the battery staff at Millennium HS (2019-present), and at Phoenix Union Indoor as a snare tech (2020-present.) Riley marched three seasons on snare drum at Vision Percussion (2016-2018) where he aged out with the ensemble. Riley currently holds a bachelors degree in Music Education from Grand Canyon University, and is in his third year as a general music teacher in the Tempe Elementary school district. He is also a Vic Firth/Zildjian Educational Artist.
SHANE FINUCANE
Lead Tech
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CONNOR SULLIVAN
Connor Started his marching career playing snare drum through middle school and high school. After graduating, he went to ASU for Music Education in the Jazz Guitar studio. While at ASU, he spent 1 season matching Mellophone with the SDMB. He first came to Breakthrough Percussion in 2017 for At The Gates, where he played guitar with the front ensemble. He continued to march with BT for another 2 seasons before aging out. During his last year with BT, he also began teaching percussion at various schools around the valley, helping out at Basha and Casa Grande summer camps, spending 3 seasons with Higley HS, and is now in his 5th year with Queen Creek High School. And now he’s back with Breakthrough once again, but this time as a front ensemble tech. Connor can’t wait to be a part of this amazing team and help to raise Breakthrough to new heights.
BRANDON BERG
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SPENCER HAWLEY
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