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
