Almost every local music-lover has been inspired and touched by Cheryl Anderson, leading lady of the Cabrillo College Music Program, who is now about to lift off into retirement.
This weekend she makes her final appearances before moving onto her next phase, leading the Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus in the Santa Cruz Symphony’s presentation of Mozart’s Requiem in D minor.
As a friend, mentor, choral director, fashion icon, drill sergeant and exacting teacher, Cheryl has been a Central Coast treasure for 50 years. Anyone who has watched her eloquent hands, fingers arched and keeping time to her inner metronome, suspects that Anderson’s version of retirement will not involve La-Z-Boy recliners and binge watching The White Lotus. She may be exiting her official duties, but no way is she going to exit the building.
Named 2018 Artist of the Year by the Santa Cruz County Arts Commission, Anderson has directed Choral and Vocal Studies at Cabrillo College for more than 30 years. The music she made with so many ensembles is breathtaking in quantity as well as quality. The Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus, Cabrillo Youth Choir, Cantiamo!, Cabrillo Chorale, Sunday services at Peace United Church—a remarkable achievement.
And that’s not even beginning to take into account the sheer, gobsmacking ambition of this woman. Touring the Vatican, Carnegie Hall, and modest venues from Russia to Cuba. How many of us have sung Handel’s Messiah along with Cheryl and her choral groups? Singers need to have courage and the stamina of marathon runners to work with her grueling warm-ups, followed by the signature invitation to “put buttissimos in seats.”
Sparkly earrings and spiky high heels, Cheryl’s bold sense of style is front and center at every rehearsal and even more so in concert settings. The assertive dress code means a full spectrum of eye candy energizing every performance.
“We’ve been pedal to the metal after Carnegie Hall!” she told me last week. “We managed to prep for the Santa Cruz Symphony concert simultaneously with our Carnegie Hall material, so it has not been as crazy as it might have been!”
Yes, but still crazy by the standards of most mere musical mortals.
Travel odysseys for the near future have already been planned. “John and I are driving across the Southwest and will see sights we’ve never had time for, like Big Bend in Texas, returning to the Four Corners area, and lots of visits with friends before we end up in my home in Pennsylvania. Then after the new year we’re going to travel in Egypt, a dream we both have had forever.”
Don’t worry, Cheryl will not leave us without her musical skills. “My plan is to remain director of music at Peace United, and eventually lend support to Cabrillo and to the Music Department. I have a number of guest-conducting engagements ahead and I’ll be attending the choral music conferences I always go to.” Busy retirement.
“Choral music has fed my soul my entire life. It’s given me the opportunity to work with wonderful people and their beautiful voices, serving the choral organizations, enjoying colleagues, traveling the world, and feeling as though I can give something back to our community and to the musical world. I’ve been fortunate to be able to know and make music with the full gamut: children, college students, community singers and professional musicians. I’m grateful for every moment of all of it.”
The almost-retired choral director has worked with the Santa Cruz Symphony for more than a decade, blending her Symphonic Chorus with the Symphony’s musicians in concerts of transcendent beauty. Bach, Beethoven, Bernstein, Britten—all have moved audiences with their power and majesty, thanks in part to Anderson’s impeccable preparation.
Last year I spoke with Santa Cruz Symphony Maestro Daniel Stewart about working with Cheryl. “How wonderful it is to have a collaborator of her caliber, of her vision, of her heart,” he told me. “She’s one of my favorite musicians I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with and I’ve enjoyed our many collaborations more than I can say.”
As someone who has had the pleasure of singing with Cheryl Anderson and her Symphonic Chorus I know the thrill from the inside. I will miss singing with her.
In that, I’m not alone.
INFO: 7:30pm on May 3 at the Santa Cruz Civic with a pre-concert talk at 6:30; 2pm on May 4 at Watsonville’s Henry J. Mello Center with a pre-concert talk at 1pm. Ticket: $45–$130. santacruzsymphony.org
As someone who studied under Cheryl Anderson from 2011 to 2016, and as a honors program graduate from Cabrillo College, I feel compelled to add a perspective that is missing from this otherwise celebratory narrative.
What is presented publicly as dedication and excellence often came, in my experience, at the expense of student wellbeing. The environment fostered was not one of mentorship, but of control, where participation was not simply encouraged, but expected under implicit pressure. I recall being told that a prior commitment preventing me from performing in a Cantiamo holiday concert could affect whether I would receive a letter of recommendation for college. Despite years of loyalty and contribution, that moment was not only disheartening, but deeply inappropriate.
The result of that kind of pressure is not excellence, it is fear. I, like others, reached a point where even singing felt fraught, where expression was replaced by anxiety about consequences. That is not what music education should be.
It is easy, in retirement, to highlight accolades and surface-level success stories. But a legacy is not only defined by programs built or concerts performed. It is also defined by how students were treated in the process. Many of us carried forward not inspiration, but the need to rebuild confidence that had been diminished in that environment.
I share this not out of bitterness, but because narratives like this are incomplete without acknowledging the experiences of those who were directly impacted. I sincerely hope future generations of students encounter leadership that values both artistic growth and personal dignity equally.
I would also add that my experience was not isolated. At the time, many of my classmates and colleagues shared these same sentiments quietly with one another. There was a kind of unspoken understanding, confirmed again and again in private conversations, that what we were experiencing did not align with the ideals of mentorship being described here. Still, very few felt safe naming it openly, given how much influence was tied to recommendations and future opportunities. Looking back now, I suspect many of these same individuals, now adults established in our own careers, would feel far more comfortable speaking honestly about those experiences.
Reading language about “community,” “family,” and artistic fulfillment, I cannot help but notice how different that framing feels from what many of us experienced behind the scenes. When authority is paired with that level of personal and professional leverage, compliance can easily be mistaken for cohesion, and silence mistaken for respect.
In terms of the “success stories” often associated with this program, I think it is worth approaching that narrative with a degree of honesty. While many students remained connected to music in some capacity, very few followed the kind of international trajectory we were consistently told we were being prepared for, and at times, implicitly promised. Many students ultimately pursued paths far different from the elite professional outcomes that were so often emphasized. Some remained local educators, others moved into adjacent fields, and some stepped away from performance altogether.
I made an effort in 2016 to bring my concerns forward through the appropriate Cabrillo administrative channels, including then-Dean John Graulty. That experience was deeply discouraging. It became clear that my concerns were not going to be meaningfully received, which only reinforced how difficult it was for students to advocate for themselves in that environment.
All of that said, I consider myself fortunate. Ultimately, the pressure surrounding recommendations and opportunities became the push I needed to leave the Cabrillo music program. I was lucky to find other mentors who showed me what genuine support, integrity, and encouragement looks like, and they helped me regain my footing. With their guidance, and a great deal of work on my own, I was able to move forward and ultimately earn admission to UC Berkeley on a full scholarship. That did not come from pressure or control. It came from being encouraged to grow.
When I look back, that contrast stands out most. Leadership in the arts can either build confidence or wear it down. An emphasis on “aggressive excellence,” without care to balance it, can easily become something else entirely. Music, at its best, holds the key to a brighter tomorrow. It should expand people, not make them smaller.
For many of us, that distinction was not always present, and too often our wellbeing felt secondary to the preservation of a program’s image and reputation. That, too, is an important part of the story that deserves acknowledgment alongside the one being told here.