The string ensemble kicked off its fundraising efforts in September with a performance on the Downtown Mall. Photo: Courtesy CHS Orchestra
“If you’re brought up in Charlottesville, this city is the center of the universe,” says Laura Mulligan Thomas. “It’s a great town; a wonderful place,” the long-time conductor of the Charlottesville High School Orchestra quickly adds. But when her young musicians perform further afield (in France, Italy, England and Switzerland, for example), she says it broadens their perspective and opens their eyes to the possibility of living somewhere else and getting to know “people who have a different mindset than you.”
In June, the 55 members of Thomas’ CHS String Ensemble will have an opportunity to expand their worldview when they travel to Ireland, where, in addition to serving as ambassadors for Charlottesville and the United States, they will perform in ancient castles and join local musicians for an Irish music jam session.
“Traveling overseas is an incredible experience,” says senior Cameron Ciambotti, who’s played the violin for 12 years, three of them in the string ensemble. “But traveling overseas with musicians to both share and experience music is a unique experience that most are unable to have. In Ireland, we will be able to understand the culture in much more depth by making connections using the world’s universal language: music.” She says that by bringing their music to Ireland, CHS students will be exposed to the unique sounds the country offers, and “learn more about the culture than we ever could have without music.”
Before heading to the Emerald Isle, though, the group still has some fundraising to do (the trip will cost almost $200,000). The kids have held car washes and sold concessions at University of Virginia events. A March auction will feature 14 violins painted by local artists, including Meg West, Christy Yates, Sharon Shapiro and Judith Eli, as well as CHS and UVA students. The instruments are currently on display in the windows of several downtown shops, like Tuel Jewelers, The Shoe Store Next Door, Angelo Jewelry and Lynne Goldman Elements, before moving to Studio IX, where they’ll remain until March 25.
One of everyone’s favorite annual fundraisers occurred in January, when the entire orchestra performed Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, which included a post-show “petting zoo” that gave audience members an up-close look at the instruments, and an opportunity to meet the high school musicians.
“Peter and the Wolf has been the most phenomenal tool,” not only for raising money, but for “getting kids engaged and excited about playing instruments and for developing our program,” says Thomas, who had only eight orchestra members when she arrived at CHS 35 years ago. “I can’t tell you how many children have come to the show and then decided to pick up an instrument and learn it well enough so they can be part of our orchestra,” which now has 139 members and has won numerous awards and honors.
For Ciambotti, being part of Thomas’ orchestra also comes with the gift of making music with people she has known for a long time. She sits next to a student with whom she plays in the Youth Orchestras of Central Virginia and sings with in the school’s a cappella choir. “We know each other’s musical tendencies extremely well and we are able to play as one,” she says. “This is definitely a pattern throughout the entire orchestra—we are so close that, no matter how the technical parts of the pieces sound, we will always be one cohesive unit.”
Wanna help?
Contributions to the CHS String Ensemble’s June 23-30 trip to Ireland can be made at chsorchestra.org.
There’s hot chocolate and then there’s the warm, silky-smooth blend of housemade ganache and milk they whip up at MarieBette Café & Bakery. Rich, just thick enough and not too sweet, this cuppa wonderful is made to be sipped slowly and savored. It’s a grown-up version of a childhood favorite, served in a place that treats the art of hot chocolate-making with the respect and care it deserves. And during the cold months, it comes topped with marshmallows, cut from a fresh-out-of-the-oven baking sheet. Stop in on Valentine’s Day, and those marshmallows are raspberry-flavored and heart-shaped; on St. Patrick’s Day, they’re green, mint-flavored and floating atop what we call perfection in a 12-ounce cup.
Bill Yenovkian laughs as he attempts to describe the perfect Thanksgiving turkey “without sounding pornographic.” You want a “full, nice-shaped bird,” the longtime Foods of All Nations butcher begins. And then he stops, embarrassed, and tries again: “You want a rounded, plump breast…”
Why don’t we start with the number of people you’re serving and how big a bird you should buy, Yenovkian suggests. Ask yourself a few questions: How many adults will be at your table? How many children? What’s the makeup of men, women and college-aged boys? Are any of your guests vegetarians? Do you want leftovers? Are you big eaters? “It’s not as simple as buying a boneless piece of meat and guessing between six and eight ounces per person,” he says.
“One and a half to two pounds per person is a good rule of thumb,” Yenovkian says. “If you’re serving five people, you’ll want a 10- to 12-pound turkey—a 12-pound turkey is not a very big bird when you look at it. And you should err on the larger side because nobody wants to run short. It’s not that expensive to buy a couple extra pounds.”
The next step is choosing between fresh and frozen. A turkey is labeled fresh if it hasn’t been cooled below 26 degrees Fahrenheit, while a frozen bird has been chilled below zero degrees Fahrenheit (and needs plenty of time to defrost). There are also hard-chilled turkeys, which have been cooled below 26 degrees, but not below zero.
But fresh and frozen aren’t the only turkey differentiators you’ll encounter. You’ll also need to decide if you want your bird to be organic (raised on 100 percent organic feed, given access to the outdoors and no antibiotics); kosher (a grain-fed, antibiotic-free turkey that’s been processed under rabbinical supervision and soaked in a salt brine); free-range (a turkey that has access to the outdoors); or natural (a bird that’s been minimally processed and has no added artificial ingredients or colors). Then there are heritage breeds: Most store-bought turkeys are Broad Breasted Whites, but farmers such as Judd and Cari Culver raise historic breeds like the KellyBronze that can be found running wild at Heritage Glen, the couple’s Crozet farm. The pair’s slow-growing birds sell for more than $12 a pound and receive no antibiotics, feed additives or growth hormones, and they are hand-plucked, dry-hung and aged before being sold.
Among the three different birds Foods of All Nations carries are Polyface Farm turkeys, which are GMO-free and live in a paddock that is moved every other day to a new pasture that’s been “mowed” by cows, so the grass is shorter and the birds eat tender, fresh sprouts. And over on Garth Road at Timbercreek Farm, the birds are given GMO-free feed to supplement what they consume while grazing and foraging in mobile houses that are also rotated frequently.
Turkey, however, isn’t the only game in town. Yenovkian gets requests for goose, duck and the occasional turducken, a combination of turkey, duck and chicken. (“We have a hard time sourcing them,” he says. “And honestly, they’re a ridiculous amount of work.”) Some people do a Thanksgiving beef roast, a standing rib roast or a tied tenderloin, he says, but the vast majority of his customers go with turkey: Yenovkian estimates he sells about 400 birds, “which is a lot for a small store; it’s a week of chaos, but we try to keep it as organized and running as smoothly as we can.”
When asked about the centerpiece of his own Thanksgiving meal, Yenovkian says, “I like turkey. There’s a big difference between moving hundreds of pounds of turkey and sitting down and enjoying one with friends and family.”
The day after
Thanksgiving was fun, but the party’s over. Now what about all those leftovers? We turned to Mike Perry, the chef de cuisine at Harvest Moon Catering, for advice. He suggested these simple-to-make, all-inclusive turkey sliders. “They can be a bit messy,” he says. “But they’re worth it!”
8 soft rolls, cut in half and buttered
1 pound sliced or pulled, roasted turkey
1 cup turkey gravy
1 cup mashed potatoes
1 cup stuffing
½ cup cranberry sauce (optional)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Arrange the bottoms of the rolls in a buttered casserole dish. Equally divide and spoon the mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy onto the bottom half of the rolls. Layer the turkey on top of the gravy and spoon the cranberry sauce (if using) over the turkey. Put the tops of the rolls in place and cover the assembled sliders with foil. Bake for about 10 minutes. Remove the foil cover and let the sliders rest for a few minutes. Dig in!
YOCVA members can be heard at venues such as Old Cabell Hall and at a variety of community events. Photo: Caleb Davis and Abe Granger
Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival founders, Juilliard School graduates, members of Dave Matthews Band…scroll down the list of local musicians who have played in the Youth Orchestras of Central Virginia, and you won’t doubt the almost-40-year-old organization’s claim: “Music begins with us.”
“We’re the only opportunity in the community for young people who play winds and strings to play on the same stage,” says Carolyn Fitzpatrick, president of YOCVA’s board. Composed of two full symphony orchestras, a junior strings program, and flute and clarinet ensembles, YOCVA is open to musicians ages 10 to 18 who live in Charlottesville, Albemarle and neighboring counties.
“We have a group of very dedicated conductors and the program is a step stool that allows our musicians to go from one level to the next, from, say, junior strings in elementary or middle school, to the Evans Orchestra and finally the Youth Symphony,” Fitzpatrick says. Auditions typically happen in the spring and late summer, after which “the conductors get together and build their symphonies,” she says. “Don Brubaker [director of the Rita M. Evans Orchestra] says his job is to empty his orchestra every year, meaning he hopes all his musicians move up [to the Youth Symphony].”
Fitzpatrick’s daughter, Mary, did exactly that: She started out playing in YOCVA’s Flute Ensemble, made the Evans Orchestra as an eighth-grader and eventually earned a spot as the principal flute in the Youth Symphony, in which she played for three years.
“The orchestra is different from private lessons and school bands becauses it’s an orchestra, and it’s a voluntary activity where our entire focus is on playing and how to communicate that to an audience,” says Mary Fitzpatrick, now a freshman at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, where she’s studying music therapy. “[The orchestras] helped me learn to work with all kinds of people—homeschoolers, private school students—not just people from my school,” adds the Albemarle High grad, who says she met two of her best friends, one from Monticello High and the other from Western Albemarle, during her time in YOCVA.
In addition to performing at venues such as Old Cabell Hall three times a year, members of the orchestras can also be heard at a variety of community events, including Monticello’s holiday house
tours and its annual naturalization ceremony and First Night Virginia. They’ve also begun a musical collaboration with Computers4Kids, an area organization that brings technology to children who don’t have access to it at home.
And while playing in YOCVA isn’t cheap (it costs between $295 and $400, annually), Fitzpatrick says, “Our mission is no barrier to talent. If you have the talent, we will make sure it’s possible for you to play in our orchestras.”
Priya Mahadevan's book tells the story of a visit to India with her daughter, Shreya. Photo: Jen Fariello
By the time Priya Mahadevan’s youngest daughter was 5 years old, Mahadevan had completed drafts for six children’s books. But it wasn’t until earlier this year that she published the first one: Princesses Only Wear Putta-Puttas, the semi-true story of a visit to India with her daughter for a wedding.
“The trip was so profound for Shreya, especially after living in a quiet [Albemarle County] countryside home, that it had to be chronicled in some form or manner,” Mahadevan says. The book accompanies bicultural Fey Fey, a dead-ringer for now-7-year-old Shreya, as she experiences and falls in love with the country’s sights and sounds. But what captures Fey Fey’s fancy most is India’s traditional costumes—and when she returns to the United States, she insists that she is an Indian princess. This comes with several challenges, such as playing in the sandbox or staying warm in winter while dressed in a putta-putta (an Indian silk skirt and blouse), the only thing she will wear.
Mahadevan, whose two older children are both in college, says she began writing about Shreya when her daughter was a toddler, and “the themes for stories seemed to present themselves to me. With digital cameras and computers, I could watch her grow and keep notes on stuff she did, something I never got to do with my older two who are just a couple of years apart.”
Princesses Only Wear Putta-Puttas, the first in a series of four books, is a writing departure for Mahadevan, who worked as a political correspondent for an Indian newspaper and a New Delhi-based magazine before getting married and moving to Canada and then the U.S.
When she’s not writing, Mahadevan can be found in the kitchen, cooking up the South Indian fare she serves at her Desi Dosa stall at City Market, the Stonefield farmers market and a variety of other area events (priyasnowserving.com). “I started writing a food blog in 2010, and the cyber interactions with other food bloggers opened up a whole new world,” she says. “One thing led to another and before I knew it, I was doing cooking classes. Desi Dosa was a result of many of my friends and family pushing for me to be more entrepreneurial.”
And while Mahadevan calls food a new passion, her children, she says, are “my permanent passion,” which is why she hopes her book “will strike a chord with many families who enjoy more than one culture.”
See for yourself Princesses Only Wear Putta-Puttas is available online at priyamahadevan.com.
Gabriel Mapel co-founded a birding club for kids ages 7 to 17. Photo: Ézé Amos
During a visit to Shenandoah National Park when he was 9 years old, Gabriel Mapel saw a mother black bear with her three cubs, and “from that moment on, my life would fully revolve around nature,” says the now-16-year-old. Not only did the bears get him “hooked,” Mapel says they also turned him into an advocate, and he now makes it his mission to spread the message that black bears “are 99 percent of the time mellow, docile and more scared of you than you are of them—if you give them their space.”
A year later, Mapel noticed another mother bear with her cubs in one of the park’s seven picnic areas. On that day, he also met Rodney Cammauf, a Shenandoah National Park volunteer and a professional nature photographer, who had been documenting the four bears. Cammauf told Mapel that Gertrude (the name he’d given the mom) had gotten into some trouble thanks to a group of picnickers that left their food out when they went on a hike.
“Gertrude had gotten ahold of it,” Mapel recalls. And “when bears get human food, they become habituated and are considered nuisance animals by wildlife officials…generally they have to be relocated, which means they have their lives put at risk because they have to fight for new territory or be destroyed.” The thought of humans putting Gertrude in danger “saddened and angered” Mapel, but he says he also realized the picnickers didn’t know they’d done anything wrong. His solution? He wrote Oh No, Gertrude!, a children’s book that features Cammauf’s photographs.
Bears, however, aren’t Mapel’s only passion. Around the time he finished Oh No, Gertrude!, he fell in love with birding, and when his godmother asked him why he never birded with people his age, he said he didn’t know any other young birders. To remedy this, he co-founded the Blue Ridge Young Birders Club (blueridgeyoungbirders.org), which now has 30 members, ranging in age from 7 to 17.
“I enjoy mentoring the younger birders,” Mapel says, adding that he also leads field trips, supervises the monitoring of bluebird trails and participates in other bird-related projects such as the Audubon Christmas Bird Count and breeding bird surveys. And then there was that time in 2011 when Mapel, who is homeschooled, did a junior Big Year, during which he found 437 species of birds.
“I visited many of the birding hot spots throughout the country,” he says, including South Florida, the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, the Pacific Coast of California, the Lake Erie shore of Ohio and Alaska. Nowadays, Mapel spends much of his free time closer to home, volunteering for Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch and at Shenandoah National Park, as well as working as the field trip chairperson for the Monticello Bird Club. When asked about his dream job, Mapel says he’d like to be a Shenandoah National Park ranger.
“Nature is under-appreciated and, sadly, often abused,” he says. “I want to make a difference, and the best way to do that is to educate people and wake them up to how awesome nature is—and how it needs to be respected.”
BEAR NECESSITIES
When Gabriel Mapel and Rodney Cammauf decided to collaborate on the children’s book Oh No, Gertrude!, their goal was simple: “We wanted to help educate people about how to behave in bear country” and keep bears safe, says Mapel. The book, which was published in 2010 and features then-10-year-old Mapel’s words and Cammauf’s photography, tells the true story of Gertrude, a black bear who found herself in big trouble thanks to some clueless people.
When Mapel met Cammauf, he learned the photographer had been taking pictures of Gertrude and her cubs for a while, and had “captured [their] entire story through the lens of his camera,” Mapel says. Reaction to the pair’s book version of the bears’ Shenandoah National Park adventures “was more than anything we could have imagined in our wildest dreams,” he says, adding that Oh No, Gertrude! has sold more than 7,000 copies. It is available online and at several national parks, including Shenandoah, Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone and Big Bend.—S.S.
Tim Gearhart outgrew his space in the Main Street Market five years ago, but it wasn’t until late last fall that he opened his new store in the Vinegar Hill Shopping Center next door to Staples. Gearhart’s business had grown enormously since it opened in 2001, back when he used two forks to hand-dip every piece of chocolate, and “it got to the point where we had to make a change,” he says. “We loved the Main Street Market, it’s a great part of our DNA, but it was time to leave, and it came down to how important it was to produce where we sell.”
Photo: Tom McGovern
“We could have made [our products] somewhere else much cheaper and trucked them to the [West Main Street] store, but in the end, we decided not only to make the move, but to take the opportunity to enhance our footprint in Charlottesville,” he says, adding that his goal is to make the city a destination for chocolate in the same way it is for wine and beer.
Photo: Tom McGovern
Gearharts’ small, dark, former location “wasn’t exactly a place to bring family when they were in town,” he says, but he has room enough in his new eat-in café for plenty of customers to enjoy his wares, which, in addition to the 12,000 pieces of chocolate made daily (“when we’re going full-tilt,” he says), now include chocolate- centric desserts, such as cakes, tortes, cookies, brownies and cupcakes. And you can’t beat the view: A large window on one side of the cafe allows guests to watch the magic happen in the “chocolate room” of the new kitchen. It’s here where Mayas (cocoa-dusted bittersweet chocolate ganache balls that are part of Gearharts’ signature line of 16 chocolates) are hand-rolled (as many as 600 a day during the Christmas rush), and fillings, such as nuts, fruit and caramel, are coated in chocolate by an enrobing machine that can cover 2,000 pieces an hour and has allowed Gearhart to retire his dipping forks. Two hundred chocolate bars are also hand-wrapped every day in this space.
But Gearhart, a Marine Corps cook, Culinary Institute of America grad and former pastry chef at Hamiltons’ at First & Main, says he hasn’t created “an endless factory.”
Photo: Tom McGovern
“We’re not doing anything different from what we did on day one,” he says. “We’re just doing more of it,” including serving custom chocolates to French President François Hollande during a State Department luncheon, says Gearhart, who uses a blend of Valrhona chocolate made exclusively for him in France. When pressed, he says the Peanut Butter Pups (milk chocolate and peanut butter puppies with dark-chocolate faces and almond ears) are among his best sellers. Gearhart’s products can be found in 300 stores around Virginia, everywhere from mom-and-pop wine shops to Whole Foods.
“I love making people happy, and what better way to do it than with chocolate?” he says. “I tell my employees how lucky we are to get to do something like this every day. It’s not a bad gig.”
Matthew Angeley, Emmet Haden and Cameron Fard are members of the Albemarle High School Jazz Combo, which will kick off an evening of music by Terri Allard, John D’earth, Charles Owens and many others at the Southern on Sunday. Photo: Amy Jackson
When Greg Thomas sent an audition tape of the Albemarle High School Jazz Ensemble to Swing Central last fall, he didn’t give it a second thought. He figured his group had no chance of being one of the 12 bands accepted to the elite three-day competition and workshop that are part of the Savannah Music Festival.
“The kids were super excited, so I pretended I was too,” he laughs. “But I didn’t think we’d get in.” Which is why Thomas, director of bands at AHS for 23 years, was shocked in December when he received an e-mail that began: “We are very excited that you will be a special part of the 2016 Savannah Music Festival, and we look forward to seeing you in March!”
Called the “Super Bowl of high school jazz competitions” by the Florida Sun-Sentinel, Swing Central will allow Thomas and his band [this writer’s daughter is a member] to hang with some of the best high school musicians in the country. They’ll also participate in sessions with jazz masters, including Jason Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon and Marcus Roberts, perform in Savannah’s Jazz on the River and attend shows by other festival participants ranging from Langhorne Slim and Ry Cooder to Dwight Yoakam and Dave Rawlings. On the final day, the group will compete for the prestigious Faircloth Award and a $5,000 prize.
There is, however, a hitch: Thomas needs $23,000 to send 35 young musicians to Georgia for four days.
The band recently received a Bama Works Fund grant, which, combined with money raised from a GoFundMe page and a Valentine’s Day dance, brings it within striking distance of its goal. And on Sunday, March 6, the kids are getting some help from a few talented friends: Singer-songwriter Terri Allard, trumpeter John D’earth, saxophonist Charles Owens and several other local musicians will perform a benefit concert for the AHS Jazz Ensemble at The Southern Café and Music Hall.
“What the Southern show does is demonstrate the willingness of our great community of musicians to get down on a project for our kids,” Thomas says. “These aren’t movie stars making millions of dollars; they’re musicians who work for a living, and it’s a big deal, a big contribution, when you get people like John and Charles and Terri to do a benefit for your group. They do it because in addition to being national-caliber artists, they are also incredibly committed educators.”
In Allard’s case, it’s a two-way street: Her son, Will, plays trumpet in three of Thomas’ bands, and “he feels very fortunate to participate in a program that is such a big part of his high school experience; something that has such a positive impact on his overall well-being,” she says. “As a band mom and a musician, I am thrilled to support the important work the students are doing under Greg’s leadership.”
Allard, who also hosts the long-running public television series “Charlottesville Inside-Out,” says she’s “a huge fan of John and Charles. Our musical styles are different, but our dedication to the arts is the same.”
Owens, a veteran of the New York jazz scene, is a regular in the AHS band room, showing up weekly to work with members of the jazz ensemble. D’earth, who’s been called “the Pied Piper of central Virginia jazz,” has also spent a lot of time with and written music for AHS bands. Both men have given private lessons to “too many of my students to count,” says Thomas, adding that neither D’earth nor Owens “hesitated for a second” when asked to perform in the benefit show.
“John and I have been playing together for years,” Owens says. “We inspire each other and push each other to be more creative, and when we get together we play jazz in the style of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard and Joe Henderson. We also play John’s original compositions and plan to do some of those [on March 6].”
Owens says “a trip like [the one to Swing Central] can really change a person’s life for the better. This will be an unforgettable experience for the kids.”
Among those kids are musicians in the nine-member Albemarle High School Jazz Combo, which will kick off the evening at the Southern with a half-hour set. Saxophonist Cameron Fard says he’s a little nervous about opening for Allard, D’earth and Owens because “it’s kind of stressful taking the stage ahead of people who are so amazing and have been playing for decades.”
Allard’s trio, which includes harmonica player Gary Green and Sonny Layne on bass, will follow the student group, and the show will close with a set featuring D’earth, Owens, bass player Andrew Randazzo, Devonne Harris on drums and Garen Dorsey (an AHS jazz band alum) on piano.
“They are music idols to us,” says Emmet Haden, a trumpet player in several AHS bands. “It’s very humbling and incredible of them to do this for us. It’s a really great feeling to know we are a part of such a cool, generous music community.”
When Zak Robbins was in sixth grade, he spotted a long line of people one afternoon on the Downtown Mall. Upon closer inspection, he realized everyone was waiting their turn for a balloon animal, so he joined the queue. When he finally made it to the front, he asked for “the biggest, most elaborate thing [the artist] could make: a giant scorpion.” Back home, Robbins says he studied it for a long time, and finally thought, “I need to do this.”
And, just like that, a business was born: Balloon Art By Zak (balloonartbyzak.com).
But before Robbins, now 16, could take his own show on the road, he needed to teach himself a thing or two. He ordered books, studied videos and purchased balloons. A lot of balloons, which he twisted into a variety of shapes during every spare moment. After months of nonstop squeaks emanating from their son’s bedroom, Robbins’ parents realized he was serious about his hobby, so they contacted a friend who runs an entertainment company.
Before you could say, “I’d like Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, please,” Robbins was working birthday parties, company picnics and family gatherings.
When he was in seventh grade, Robbins attended the first of several balloon conventions in Washington, D.C., where he went to hands-on classes and seminars, as well as business sessions that helped him build his company. It was at these conventions that he met and learned techniques from “people who have been making balloon art for most of their lives,” he says. “They taught me the skills I now use. I love to look at what other artists have made and play off that; once you’ve learned all the twists, you incorporate your own style.”
At the start of his career, Robbins says he was nervous and, in addition to crafting dogs, swords and hats, he had to “work on being entertaining; [the job is] about so much more than giving out a balloon.” He also admits that in the early months, his creations tended to be too elaborate—SpongeBob SquarePants, superheroes and Looney Tunes characters, for example—and he quickly figured out some partygoers would leave empty-handed if it took him five minutes to make each balloon. “Now I crank them out in a minute or less, and everyone goes home happy,” Robbins says, adding that at smaller events he can take his time and make anything anyone wants.
When asked about his most elaborate work, he pulls out his cell phone, which contains a photo of him wearing a full-body Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle balloon costume that took him more than five hours to “make around myself.” Robbins says he’s never been stumped by a request at an event, and enjoys creating snakes because “I can scale it up and make 6′-long boa constrictors and wrap them around the kids.” Supplies for a party with 20 children include 500 to 600 balloons in his belt, with a couple hundred extras for restocking, as well as Sharpies for drawing faces and pumps for inflating balloons.
During the school year, the high school sophomore, who plays the bass guitar, runs track and is enrolled in three AP courses, has to scale back to two or three parties a month, but in the summer, he might do that many events in a week. And his work isn’t just for children: “Often parents will hire me for the kids, but by the end of the party, the grownups are sitting around me and asking for balloons.”
Students at The Village School, an all-girls private middle school. Photo: Amanda Maglione
It took two men with a vision to create an all-girls village
On the Tuesday before winter break, a spirited debate has broken out in Jamie Knorr’s sixth-grade history class at Village School, the all-girls middle school he and Proal Heartwell founded two decades ago. A few of Knorr’s students have just delivered their soliloquy, a dramatic discourse based on a character from Rosemary Wells’ Red Moon at Sharpsburg, which they spent several weeks preparing.
“One thing I’ve been thinking about,” Knorr says, “is I’m not clear why we have grades. The deal is, if everyone does what’s asked of them, and does the best she can do, why, on this assignment, is there anyone here who would be upset by not receiving a grade?”
Several hands shoot up, and Knorr points to Ella. “I kind of want to get a grade,” she says. “I know everyone would get an A, so it wouldn’t be meaningful, but I still want to get one.”
“The grade itself doesn’t matter,” counters Penelope. “But I would like to talk to you and get an idea of how I did.”
“It would be awful if you didn’t put a grade on our report card!” an outraged Kayleigh says.
“But you’d have my comments,” Knorr says.
“On this we should have a grade,” insists Julia. “I like your comments, but I feel like it would be so annoying if this didn’t count for more.”
“But you’ve accomplished so much, and you did a good job,” Knorr says. “You have that internal gratification. You did a great job. You feel great. Isn’t that the reward?”
“I understand that,” says Laurel. “But on our report cards, it’s nice to have something that shows our achievement. Even with your comments, we don’t know if we would have gotten an A or a B.”
On it goes—until a bell signaling the end of class rings. But instead of gathering their belongings and heading for the door, the 11- and 12-year-olds continue to make their cases for why grades do or do not matter. Finally, with a broad smile, Knorr tells the girls it’s time to get a move on: “I don’t want you to be late for math class.”
Wanna be startin’ somethin’
“A lot of what I try to do is just get the kids to relax and trust in themselves and their instincts because they are talented and creative,” says Proal Heartwell. Photo: Amanda Maglione
Knorr and Heartwell met more than 20 years ago when both were teachers at Charlottesville High School. Heartwell had been teaching English for a decade, but says he wanted “to be in an environment that I had a little more control over.” A place, he adds, where the decisions weren’t made by people who were the furthest removed from the classroom. He and Knorr both enjoyed—and wanted to continue—teaching, but they envisioned doing it at a school that was run by teachers.
The pair’s research showed most families were happy with their elementary and high school experiences, but middle school was another story. It “felt like a forgotten area, and when [students] came to CHS, there were a lot of bright kids who lacked certain skills,” Knorr says. “Many were not strong writers or critical thinkers. They sometimes weren’t able to express themselves verbally.” Knorr and Heartwell thought they might be able to fix this if they opened a school where every teacher had the same children for grades five through eight. Not only would students develop academically, the pair reasoned, but teachers would instill in them confidence, self-reliance and the ability to speak up in class.
The initial reaction to Knorr and Heartwell’s plan was lukewarm. There were already plenty of good schools in Charlottesville and Albemarle, friends and colleagues reminded them.
“That’s why teachers don’t start schools,” Knorr says with a laugh. “People rolled their eyeballs at us.” But it was 1994, and Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls had just been published. In the book, which would sell millions of copies and spend more than three years on the New York Times bestseller list, Pipher, a psychologist, claimed we were living in a culture that “limits girls’ development, truncates their wholeness and leaves many of them traumatized.”
“On a pragmatic level, we needed a niche, something unique to Charlottesville,” Heartwell recalls. “There was a lot of discussion then about gender inequality in the classroom, and we had the opportunity to address that by being a single-sex school. We were convinced that a single-sex environment would allow [girls] to be who they are and focus on learning and risk-taking. We wanted to create an environment where kids could be most successful.”
For the school to succeed, the two men determined they needed 30 students in fifth and sixth grades in the first year. “We opened with 15,” Heartwell says with a smile. Their operating budget was $60,000, but enrollment doubled each year for the first four years, and the school has been fully enrolled since.
“The kids who came that first year were the pioneers who helped us create the traditions and the rules,” Heartwell says. “They taught [two former high school teachers] what a reasonable amount of homework is.”
For their part, Heartwell taught English, Knorr history, and both men taught P.E. They hired part-time math, science, music and drama teachers. They also hired a Latin teacher, and, to this day, some parents ask them, “Why Latin? Why not a modern language?”
“It’s not just about learning Latin,” Knorr explains. “Latin is something that reflects the spirit of the school—they’re both about challenging the girls and allowing them to experience their own power of thought. Latin is not easy, but everyone is in the same boat, everyone has to do it.”
Laurie Duncan, in her 11th year as Village’s Latin teacher, says learning the language “gives the students a key to their own language and unlocks doors to others. That all the students share this language also engages them more deeply in this intellectually rigorous, culturally enriching project.”
Asked about the school’s name, Knorr says, “We were way ahead of Hillary Clinton. We liked the linkage to the Jeffersonian idea of the academical village. And within a village, we take care of each other.”
In starting their Village, now the oldest all-girls middle school in the country, “it wasn’t just Proal and me,” Knorr says. A lawyer in Heartwell’s family stepped up, and Knorr’s wife, Nancy, is a CPA. A sister-in-law is a graphic artist and there’s a brother-in-law who’s a contractor. Knorr’s friends and family lent the pair $400,000 so they could buy the building the school now occupies at 215 E. High St.
“We watched our expenses, and we went year-to-year,” Knorr says of the early days. “Instead of saving money, we paid our teachers as much as we could possibly afford. It was always a concern that we did not have any fall-back.”
What they did have, though, was downtown Charlottesville: Village School didn’t need a library because a fine public one was two blocks away. McGuffey Park, Lane Field and the Key Recreation Center all served as the school’s gym, and students took art classes in the Old Michie Building, a former printing plant that was turned into a community arts space in the late 1980s. They volunteered every Tuesday at Christ Episcopal Church’s Loaves & Fishes and learned to dance at a studio above Hamiltons’ at First & Main. “Our location was attractive, and it continues to be,” Heartwell says. “I find it odd when schools don’t have a direct connection with their neighborhoods. Charlottesville is so rich in resources.”
In February 2015, the school paid $737,500 for the building next door on Third Street, which, when renovations were completed last fall, gave them another 3,300 square feet of space that is used for math, English and enrichment classes.
The ‘it’ factor
Head of School Eliza O’Connell is also Village’s P.E. teacher. “So much of what is important in life can be learned pushing yourself and participating on a team,” she says. Photo: Amanda Maglione
Casey Kerrigan, the mother of two Village School grads and a current sixth-grader, callsKnorr and Heartwell “true visionaries.” She says the time her older daughters—one in college at Oxford, the other recently accepted early action to Yale—spent at Village School “will always be the most significant four years of formal education they’ll ever have in their lives. We’ve witnessed that Village School gives its graduates this ‘it’ that’s hard to quantify, or even verbalize.”
Kerrigan says an all-girls middle school was appealing because research showed “that in mixed-gender schools, girls are called on less, receive less feedback and generally display lower self-esteem. We had been hearing the mantra that the middle school years are difficult for either gender, and that just getting through those years was sufficient. Then we met the Village School faculty, who are devoted to turning [that time] into a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity.”
“Middle school can be a really awkward and difficult time for girls,” says Claire Wiley, a Village School alum who’s now a senior at Northwestern University. “Looking back, I feel like being around other girls I was close with, who were also going through the same things, made the whole experience much more comfortable. … I think my time in middle school was much easier than it would have been if I hadn’t attended Village School. I’ve had conversations with people my age who say that middle school was the worst time of their life, and I was lucky to have this not be the case.”
Eleanor V. Wilson, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, says the middle school years are when girls—and boys—are especially vulnerable as they are developing their sense of self-worth during these years. “In many ways,” she says, “if students aren’t given chances to develop their sense of self during this age span, problems may follow them into high school and beyond. Self-confidence that is encouraged at this critical time for both boys and girls is central to their becoming successful adults, no matter what path they may follow.”
And although many educators agree that girls tend to be overshadowed academically by boys in the classroom, Wilson says there can be drawbacks to same-sex education because separating boys and girls may “slightly influence social interaction with others. Also, some studies have shown that girls actually strengthen their sense of self-confidence when placed in academic dialogue with boys.”
In 2014, The Atlantic ran a piece titled “The Never-Ending Controversy Over All-Girls Education,” which quoted a Science piece co-authored by eight scholars who claim single-sex schools might actually reinforce cultural attitudes about gender differences and abilities, and leave both sexes unprepared to negotiate egalitarian relationships. Co-education, they say, gives girls and boys the opportunity to learn positive skills from each other. The authors also wrote that success at single-sex schools may have nothing to do with gender makeup, but rather with the characteristics of the students who enroll: Are they academically advanced to begin with? Does their socioeconomic status give them an educational leg up?
Eliza O’Connell, who was hired last summer as Village’s first head of school, has little time for questions like these. “Our goal is to give girls a voice, to engage curious learners and graduate students of the highest character who have a deep love of learning,” she says. The mother of three daughters, O’Connell says the school offers two things: a strong academic program and a single-sex academic and social experience “that just isn’t found in many schools. These are some of the most impressionable and vulnerable years of a girl’s life,” she says. “If girls come out of middle school confident and well-prepared, the sky’s the limit.”
Today Village School has 78 students enrolled in grades five through eight. They arrived from 14 different elementary schools, and the majority of them will go on to a public high school. There are between 32 and 38 “qualified” applicants for 20 places in each year’s fifth grade class, O’Connell says. All prospective students and their parents are interviewed, and every applicant takes the Woodcock-Johnson intelligence test. Following the end-of-January application deadline, the school’s entire full-time faculty of eight meets to “figure out” the incoming class, O’Connell says. “It isn’t about 20 girls who are exceptional at one thing; it’s about the strengths and weaknesses of 20 girls who will thrive together.”
Tuition for the 2016-2017 school year is $14,214, plus an annual $1,000 book, technology and activity fee. The school has a “very modest scholarship program,” says O’Connell, who has worked in development and marketing and sat on a variety of local boards, including the Virginia Discovery Museum, Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA and the Senior Center.
“In a perfect world, our tuition would never increase,” she says, adding that creating a stronger scholarship program is “an absolute priority” for her.
Asked how the girls transition from the school’s small, nurturing environment to larger public and private high schools, O’Connell says the academic part is relatively easy, but socially, it’s a big change. “Honestly, most of the girls are ready and excited for the opportunity and diversity that awaits them. They are not afraid to ask for help or get involved.”
For Claire Wiley, the transition to Albemarle High School, with an enrollment of nearly 2,000 students, “wasn’t exactly easy, but it was one I wanted to make. After spending four years in a small school, I felt ready to make the leap.”
Heartwell says feedback from high school teachers is positive. “They tell us our kids are good writers, they’re organized and they’re comfortable with adults because they’re so used to the give-and-take and interaction with adults here.”
The next generation
Laurie Duncan, in her 11th year of teaching Latin at Village, says one of the best things about the school is that it “builds this amazing, supportive camaraderie” among the girls. Photo: Amanda Maglione
Knorr and Heartwell are both in their 60s (66 and 61 years old, respectively), which means they’ve begun to think about the future of Village when they retire. Hiring O’Connell, who spearheaded the purchase of and fundraising for the new building, allows them to do less administrative work and focus on teaching.
Twenty years in is “a natural time for the school to consider the next chapter,” says O’Connell, who, in addition to serving as head of school, has taught physical education classes at Village for two years.
“Nobody can imagine [Knorr and Heartwell] not being here,” she adds. But stepping back from administration “gives them the energy to stay and teach longer.” She sees her role as “remaining true to the pillars that Jamie and Proal created, which includes giving teachers freedom to teach what they are passionate about—real learning comes from having a passionate teacher.” O’Connell also does not “want to change the fundamentals of the school. I want to expand and go deeper where we have already been successful [as well as] create a network for our alumnae to promote each other and to be a voice for girls schools nationwide.”
It’s a chilly, gray January morning, and the girls in Heartwell’s seventh-grade English class are printing out final versions of their five-page “essay of inquiry,” which requires them to ask a question that doesn’t have a definitive answer and come up with their own conclusions. Heartwell tells his students that each of them will read aloud the first paragraph of her essay today. The student-selected topics range from “Where do superstitions come from?” and “What is art?” to “Can we really trust our brains when making a split-second decision?” and “What are the next steps in artificial intelligence—will robots one day take over the world?”
When it’s Libby’s turn to speak, she tells the class that her essay looks at how the stereotypes of princesses have changed our perceptions of girls. “The blue and pink divide,” she says.
“Are there any Disney princesses that are good role models?” Heartwell asks. “What about Belle? She likes to read books!”
“And Snow White is very kind,” says Libby, adding that her essay deals primarily with the physical proportions of princesses and how they affect young girls’ body images.
Heartwell points to Cordelia, who says her paper looks at the advantages and disadvantages of Title IX, the 1972 law that required gender equity for girls and boys in all education programs—including athletics—that were federally funded.
“The point you make about coaching,” Heartwell says. “What did you find out?”
“Before Title IX there were more coaching opportunities for women,” Cordelia says. “After Title IX, pay went up, and a lot of the coaching jobs went to men. Women were allowed to play sports but not coach.”
Now in his 31st year of teaching, Heartwell credits the energy and the age of his students for his longevity in the classroom. “They’re at a nice age and are not necessarily jaundiced about school,” he says. “I also have the opportunity to teach them for four years, so I get to know them well and I can challenge them in a non-threatening way that you have when you have a good rapport with your students.”
Heartwell says the girls are also willing to try things and take chances, “and they understand that things don’t always work out. Sometimes you fail, and this is a good environment for that to happen.” He likens what he does to something poet Wallace Stevens said: “You never write the perfect poem, only the poem that’s less wrong,” Heartwell quotes. “Well, we’re just trying to be less wrong.”
Village people
$4,500: Tuition for the 1995-1996 academic year
99: Percent of girls who start in fifth grade and graduate in eighth grade
16: Number of years the school has published Jambalaya, its student literary journal
1: Number of Village School grads to win the $30,000 Emily Couric Leadership Scholarship
0: Number of girls who have been turned down by the Math Engineering and Science; Environmental Studies; and Health Sciences academies at Albemarle, Western and Monticello high schools, respectively
“It all starts with teachers,” says Jamie Knorr. “Learning is a personal relationship, and you have to love what you do.” Photo: Amanda Maglione
13: Number of different colleges and universities that students from Village School’s Class of 2010 attend:
UVA: 4
Bates: 2
Yale: 2
Cornell: 1
Middlebury: 1
New York University: 1
Oxford: 1
Stanford: 1
UCLA: 1
Vassar: 1
Virginia Tech: 1
Williams: 1
William & Mary: 1
45: Number of miles Head of School Eliza O’Connell runs each week
