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04/26/2017 08:30 AMWhen Cathyann Roding returned to Branford High School (BHS) after spring break and announced she would retire after 32 years as BHS Choir director, the reaction was nothing less than earth shaking for many in the community.
For anyone who follows the BHS choral program, Cathyann is treasured for her dedication to inspiring and motivating her students, never failing to raise the bar to produce top-notch concerts and spring musicals, providing the musical tone for joyous town gatherings as well as somber events, and delivering amazing opportunities to her students.
While the legacy Cathyann and her students will leave this town will certainly have been built on her time at BHS, Cathyann has been teaching for nearly 38 years, including five years in South Carolina and one in New York. When she thought about retiring over spring break this April, Cathyann finally realized she was ready.
“I really didn’t know I was ready until just this past spring break, but I guess I just feel the burden and the weight of my own program—I feel like it has built to such a point, I feel like I’ve lifted it to where I took it from 32 years ago to this mega monster!” she says, laughing. “But it’s not like I intentionally set the bar higher. For example, how do you follow Phantom of the Opera?”
The sell-out BHS 2011 spring musical became an area phenomenon.
“The continuing question in town, every year, is ‘Well, how are you going to top this?’” says Cathyann. “I don’t think people don’t understand how much hard work it is for the kids. They see the end result and they see the joy, and that is a big part of it, but we’re working many periods a day in this room and that’s the hard stuff. People always say Branford is so blessed with great voices, as if it just is magic, and I don’t think they understand how hard we work on voice development and character building and intent with meaning with what we do. There’s such a big picture to it.”
As always for Cathyann, a Branford Education Hall of Fame 2008 inductee, there is no “me,” only “we”—and, as always, that means her students.
“It’s about the kids. The day I announced I was going to retire, I came and I told [Principal] Lee [Panaguolias, Jr.] and I put in the paperwork, but I had to tell the kids before I told anyone after that.”
Cathyann gathered her choirs in her home away from home, the BHS choir room, filled with mementos, posters, gifts, accolades, and photos from years of incredible experiences shared with her students. Among those gathered in the choir was Cathyann’s daughter, Ashley, a BHS senior.
“I had an email ready to go to let everyone know, and as soon as I told the kids, Ashley went over to my computer and hit ‘send,’” says Cathyann. In the email, “I said I will have just announced this, but I know you would understand I needed to tell my students first.”
“The way I explained it to the kids is that, for almost 38 years, I’ve given 110 percent—I’ve never stopped, and there’s never been a mental break,” she says.
With her decision to retire, she says, “There is complete joy, there is complete satisfaction. I’m so proud. What a blessing to have been able to work since I was in my 20s in a career that I love, and to be able to retire at a young age so I can do what I want to next.”
The Branford resident has a few immediate goals in mind, post-retirement.
“Truly, I need to stop for a little bit,” she says, smiling. “I need to just stop and breathe, sleep, and maybe enjoy the summer, fully present, as my daughter prepares for college. That’s what I’d love to do.”
As for future plans, Cathyann promises, “I’m definitely not leaving Branford! Actually, my intent is to volunteer and give back. That’s what I want to do, especially to help so many alumni who are doing things now, who have come in and helped me! I want to be able to go to them and say, ‘If you need a rehearsal pianist for free, I’m here. What do you need?’ All the things they’ve helped me do, I’d like to be available to do for them.”
One alumnus who’s often returned to assist Cathyann is Colin Sheehan, who organized Branford’s 2016 #Branford4Orlando town wide events and is now organizing a retirement event for Cathyann. The celebration is set for Sunday, June 4, from 4 to 7 p.m. Details will be announced, but Sheehan is planning for “some incredible surprises,” he says. Tickets and more information available here . Sheehan hopes to raise $32,000 toward the Cathyann Roding Scholarship & Grant Fund.
By the time the celebration rolls around, Cathyann and her choirs will have completed just about all of the remaining performances set for this year, not the least of which is the Peace Project: Music for Peace and Brotherhood on Sunday, April 30, 2 p.m. at Yale University’s Woolsey Hall. Offering a bi-annual, major concert performance at Woolsey Hall to benefit local charities has become another hallmark of Cathyann’s BHS program.
The April 30 concert was inspired by last year’s memorable, moving moments singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the John Lennon Peace Wall in Prague. On April 30, Cathyann, the BHS Choral, and some special guests will create a concert featuring 160 choir members, four alumni soloists, and a live orchestra. The afternoon’s message of peace will be spread with several musical genres, from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to Lennon’s “Imagine” and other modern songs of peace, to the multiple movements of “Peacemakers” (a choral score built from words of peace from iconic, world-changing figures). Event proceeds will be donated to three local Branford charities, selected by choir student leadership.
Cathyann credits the choir leadership and all of her students with inspiring her to take on huge projects such as the Peace Project.
“I know these aren’t normal highlights for people, but the think tanks with my leaders, just coming up with ideas, are certainly one of the highlights of my career,” says Cathyann. “Honestly, I went into the summer last year, after such a big year, saying, ‘Okay —I’m just going to do a normal spring concert like everybody else.’ Well, that evolved to alright, maybe I’ll do a spring concert at Woolsey Hall. And that evolved to talking to the kids about the trip, and saying, alright, we need to move this peace thing forward—alright, we’re going to do the biggest thing ever—Beethoven’s Ninth! But those moments, as they’re evolving, are so great.”
Cathyann and her students were in Prague last spring as part of BHS Choir’s 2016 tour of the Czech Republic and Austria. As part of the program Cathyann has developed at BHS, her choirs travel every other year to perform in venues around the globe. Many of those trips add into other highlights Cathyann has enjoyed during her decades with her students at BHS.
“All of our travels have been incredible, with so many great memories, but a couple of things for me that I would have to highlight would be meeting the Pope. It was so unexpected—that was incredible,” says Cathyann of a past choir Italy trip, while also noting of a choir trip to France, “...doing a concert in Notre Dame in Paris; there’s something about that church that calls me...[H]aving that moment, and perhaps singing Baba Yetu in there, was incredible. And of course, being at Normandy.”
As for her more than 30 years of directing BHS Spring Musicals with co-director, good friend, and retired BHS teacher and coach Toni Cartisano, Cathyann says each production has been a joy. She’s already assuaging concerns from those worried the community will lose the excellence of spring musical performances for which BHS has deservedly earned its reputation.
“We’re going to make sure who we hire is thoroughly capable and has experience,” says Cathyann. “I told my students I didn’t build this program up for 32 years to watch someone take it down! I’m pretty sure there will be a lot of great applicants because of this program’s high profile. I’m handing them a complete picture which will be theirs to put their spin on. But something like the musical is not even up for grabs. You’ve got to be able to do that.”
As for putting on the musicals behind the scenes, “Although there are some of our team leaving, there are going to be others there,” says Cathyann. “This is something people say every year, ‘Oh, a senior’s graduating—everything’s going to fall apart!’ There are always people waiting to do it, because we’ve inspired them. That’s my hope, that we’ve inspired enough people that they want to see this continue. And I want to be in the audience, cheering.”
Speaking of seniors, Cathyann’s created some special traditions for them, including writing a new, personalized seniors’ song each year which she sings as a gift of goodbye. Another song, “You Light the Way,” written by Cathyann in her first year at BHS, is part of the annual BHS Commencement. Each senior in the choir sings a solo line in the song as part of the performance.
Cathyann remembers well why she wrote the song.
“When I started here, I was a young kid, and I walked in with my South Carolina hillbilly accent, and the kids were mortified! It took an entire year to win them over,” says Cathyann, who set a goal of producing two original songs and professionally recording them with her students.
The lofty goal exceeded the scope of most public-school music programs, and its huge success grabbed headlines.
“It was big deal, and it was right after that experience with them that I felt they finally accepted me. And I went home that night and I put my hands on the piano and that song just came out of me whole,” says Cathyann.
Years later, she worked with students to add lyrics for one more verse to accommodate the program’s growing number of senior soloists. She says she hopes her students never forget the song’s message.
“The reason my [personal] email is ‘youlighttheway’ is that I hope they always remember that song is what I really want to say to them,” she says. “There are hard times, struggles, times we disagreed, but we’ve given each other strength, we’ve given each other hope. That’s all in there.”
Cathyann says she has been flooded with emails, texts and phone calls from students, parents, community members, colleagues, and friends upon news of her retirement.
“I can’t even get to respond to them all yet, but I will,” she promises. “I’m preparing for this concert at Woolsey Hall April 30—it’s so big! But I’m so grateful that people are reaching out to me. I’m so humbled by all the people who’ve gotten in touch with me, and I know there will be more! It’s a really funny place to be at, but I feel happy and joyous. I don’t feel sad. I feel fulfilled, and I would like to show my students you can transition to something else, that it’s okay to take care of yourself. I know it’s okay for me because I’ve given by heart and soul to this town for 32 years.”
Cathyann says she will keep giving through the remaining performances (the last BHS choir she will lead will sing during the opening hours of the Branford Festival in June) and the remaining days of class in the choir room with her students. She says she arrives every day motivated to help inspire her students to be the people they will become. She’s also always open to learn from her students.
“That’s more important to me than anything, that as educators we’re teaching people and we need to accept the lessons they teach us, as well,” says Cathyann. “And it’s a great responsibility. It’s not about correcting papers, it’s not about collecting data. It is about educating a whole person. I believe it takes a village, but to me, I have an important part, the artistic part, and that is probably one of the most important parts in our soul, besides our spirituality.”
For the person who will follow in her footsteps, Cathyann advises, “...this job isn’t done by 2:30 p.m. every day. But I’m happy to step back and let somebody do their own thing, because I’m so grateful that when I took over, I had the freedom to build what I was going to build. The job, when I took it, was part-time, I had a choir of 30 and I had a select group of nine girls—that’s what I inherited. That, in some ways, is easier to inherit. But I’m handing you the greatest group of kids, who have intent, and the parents in the community will be behind you. And I’ll be behind the scenes rooting, ready to mentor and do what I need to do.”
As for leaving a legacy, Cathyann says, “It’s not my legacy, it’s my students and I—it’s our legacy. We’ve built it together, in the true democratic spirit of wanting to move things forward and work together.”
Branford High School Choral presents the Peace Project: Music for Peace and Brotherhood on Sunday, April 30, at 2 p.m. at Woolsey Hall, New Haven. Free shuttle transportation available. To purchase tickets, $15, call 203-315-7972. For more concert information, visit the BHS Choir Lobby website here. Donations to The Cathyann Roding Scholarship & Grant Fund can be made at the link to Cathyann Roding’s Retirement Celebration here or send a check to: The Cathyann Roding Scholarship, 1204 Main St. #289 Branford, CT 06405.