Rafael Arenas Jr. earned his Bachelor of Music degrees in Music Education and Tuba Performance as well as his teaching credential from California State University Long Beach. He also holds two Associate in Arts degrees in General Music and Music Education from Cerritos College, and is currently working on his Masters at Central Washington University. Mr. Arenas currently works as the elementary music teacher at Duarte Unified School District. Beforehand, he worked as Assistant Band Director at Cypress High School, where he helped the band get into the 2015 Rose Parade, and as K-8 music teacher at Chawanakee Unified School District. He has also worked with several marching bands in Southern California as the head marching instructor, and formerly instructed the brass line of the Velvet Knights Drum and Bugle Corps. Mr. Arenas has coached many of these ensembles to numerous awards and victories in the WBA and SCSBOA circuits.

Over the past fifteen years, Mr. Arenas has toured and performed across the United States. Most notably, he was nominated and chosen to play in the College Band Directors National Association’s (CBDNA) Small College Intercollegiate Band at the 2005 CBDNA National Convention, where he performed at Carnegie Hall and at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The band was under the direction of Larry J. Livingston and collaborated with jazz soloist, Shelly Berg. Mr. Arenas has also performed Carmina Burana with the Long Beach Symphony and in a tour in Italy with the Bob Cole Conservatory at California State University Long Beach. He is a member of the College Music Society (CMS), the National Association for Music Education (MENC), the California Association for Music Education (CMEA), the International Tuba-Euphonium Association (ITEA), the Wagner Society of Southern California, and of the Kappa Omicron Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.