When the family business is music, you don’t have to choose between passion and tradition. As a third-generation professional musician, Rich Stitzel (US’90) was surrounded by musical excellence from a very young age. “I was a child growing up around famous jazz musicians,” Stitzel recalls. “But I was a rebel… I wanted to play in rock bands.”

Stitzel was playing in clubs around the Dallas-Ft. Worth area as a teenager, and after graduating from Principia Upper School in 1990, he immediately enrolled in the renowned University of North Texas music program.

Stitzel’s career has reached the heights of the profession: “I’ve played arenas and I’ve played small coffee shops. I’ve played every kind of venue, and every genre of music.” But what he calls the “external” music—the performance, the crowds, the accolades—felt hollow.

It was while he was on an arena tour with Miranda Lambert that he chose to make a shift. “My job is to play music, but it wasn’t my passion any more. My creative passion is composing and going deep… I got very interested in the internal process—my relationship with the instrument.”

The shift brought Stitzel in step with a legendary lineage of music educators. Grandfather Matt Betton, Sr. founded the International Association of Jazz Educators. Mother Martha Stitzel (FS ‘90) was a beloved music instructor and band leader at the Upper School for over 30 years.

An intense incubation period of study, practice, and composition led him to create Drum Mantra. Today, Drum Mantra is a drum education and development program comprised of six books and a web-based community with thousands of drummers from all over the world. “When you see that your creative work has touched someone else, it validates all the hours you’ve put into it … it’s a true labor of love.”