School E-mail:    jkehl@rivergroveschool.org

School Fax:        (708) 453-6186

Mr. Kehl's life story....

John Kehl grew up on the South Side of Chicago in the Marquette Park neighborhood.  He went to Chicago Public Schools and none of his schools had a band program.  Many of the schools he went to didn't even have music class!  In seventh grade his class learned to play recorder, but Mr. Kehl had no musical experience and was really confused.  After the class was done with recorder, Mr. Kehl figured music wasn't for him and used the recorder to prop open his bedroom window. 

Mr. Kehl moved to the suburbs for high school and missed the chance to join band for his first couple of years because he didn't think he had any talent.  Mr. Kehl's friends all started playing guitar, so he figured he may as well try also.  He ordered a really junky guitar from a mail-order catalogue and got lessons at a local music store when he was fifteen.  Mr. Kehl's first guitar broke in half one day for n reason (this is why you should never buy cheap instruments!) but he bought a better one.  By his senior year in high school, Kehl had practiced a lot and learned enough to play with the high school jazz band, marching band, and concert band. 

By this time, even though he had only been playing guitar for a couple of years, Mr. Kehl knew that music was too important to him to go to college for anything else.  He went to St. Xavier Universtity for Music Education and worked hard his entire time there, practicing at least four hours a day and staying up late to finish all of his homework.  He always felt behind the other students because most of them had been playing an instrument since fifth grade.  Practicing pays off and Mr. Kehl was selected to play at three of St. Xavier's annual honors recitals. 

Mr. Kehl has learned to play electric guitar, classical guitar, bass violin, and all of the band instruments and has performed hundreds of concerts ranging many differnt styles.  Mr. Kehl has taught at Southwest Music Center in Oak Lawn, South Suburban College in South Holland, Richards High School in Oak Lawn, and is in his third year as Band Director at River Grove School. 

Mr. Kehl currently lives in Lansing, IL.  He is engaged to fiance Lauren and has two cats Miles and Figaro.