Rose Brennan-Wilkinson

Collage displayed in the CHS orchestra room.

What do Post-Its, bar codes, and The Exorcist have in common with Charlottesville High School music programs?
All of them are fifty years old this fall.
CHS’s golden anniversary is an important reason to celebrate and reflect on the last fifty years, as the school has changed so much. One of these celebrations is coming up quickly: the CHS 50th Anniversary Alumni Concert.
On November 16th, current band, orchestra, and choir students will perform with over a hundred music alumni. Current directors Mr. Hackworth, Ms. Waters, and Mr. Cooke will conduct with two special guests – former band and orchestra directors Mr. Tornello and Ms. Thomas. The concert will be in the Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center at 3:30 in the afternoon and is free and open to the public.
Current orchestra director Ms. Waters explains, “Each group is playing three pieces. We’ll all perform our school song, Charlottesville Onward, which will be the band, chorus, and orchestra at the same time.” Charlottesville Onward will be performed as a special arrangement made by the previous band teacher, Mr. Tornello.
All of CHS’s arts programs have come a long way since 1974. Our music department is especially high-achieving, and the alumni concert is a perfect time to look back on the hard work that went into building the department.
Ms. Laura Mulligan Thomas founded the CHS orchestra with eight students in 1982 and built it from the ground up. “Year by year, more people joined, and it became a bigger and more successful group,” says Ms. Waters, who is an alum herself. Today, over one hundred students make up the orchestra, which has built a national reputation. CHSO has a long history of tours and competitions in Europe, and this summer the orchestra is slated to perform in the prestigious Lisbon International Youth Music Festival.
“High musical standards have always been kind of the cornerstone of the program because we set a really high bar knowing that students can achieve it… [saying] kids can do amazing things when they are motivated and work together, and then they do,” says Ms. Waters. “And they blow the ceiling off it, too.”
Our band program is similarly flourishing. Mr. Hackworth, the current band director, has led the CHS Marching Knights to many accolades, including last weekend’s drumline award at Stafford High School.
The Marching Knights, as well as Wind, Symphonic, and Jazz ensembles, earned the Virginia Honor Band Award for 27 years, and they proudly hold almost 30 consecutive years of ‘superior’ ratings in state marching band assessments. Last year, the CHS band even performed in Rome for the New Year’s parade.
Finally, the decorated CHS choir program will also be performing in the Alumni Concert. The choirs have existed as long as the high school, but they’ve expanded hugely since current director Mr. Cooke took over in 2007.
Like the orchestra, our choirs were very small compared to the programs today, with only 36 people. The choirs at CHS has now grown to over a hundred students, and today we offer four choirs, including the newer Knightengales and Morning Choir. Just two years ago, the choirs helped earn CHS the title of  Blue Ribbon School from the Virginia Music Educators’ Association. For Mr. Cooke, “Choir is always about the community. Singing is just what we happen to do.” And at this concert, “it’s about getting to see what that community was like before us”.
If Charlottesville’s music programs are important to you and you’d like to experience the past 50 years of our community, attend the 50th Anniversary Alumni Concert for a chance to hear music 50 years in the making.