As Always, Whirlwind Wraps Up the McCallie Music Calendar with a Flourish

 

Whirlwind, McCallie’s 50-plus-year-old spring musical production, has had its share of unexpected pleasant turns over the years.

 

There was the time in 1974 that local architect Louis Wamp '75 danced across the stage playing a Paul McCartney tune on his guitar, which had a large feather tied to its neck, much to the uneasiness of director Ken Cochran.

 

There was the 1979 “Blues Brothers” performance by juniors Shelton Clark and Alan Janney that still gets mentioned to Nashville resident Clark nearly 50 years later.

 

More recently, choral director James Harr '92 donned a pair of shades and danced to “Duke of Earl” while his students sang backup, a moment that brought down the Chapel house.

 

And come Sunday night, May 3, Harr was at it again with the school’s iconic handbell choir. Just before they broke into the Neil Diamond classic, “Sweet Caroline,” Harr announced to the audience, “Feel free to sing along.” Anyone who knows much about the 1970s hit knows that every time that song is played in concert or at Boston Red Sox games inside Fenway Park the crowd sings along with great gusto.

 

So that’s just what happened inside the Chapel with the handbells. The crowd sang. Smiles filled the place. Guitar teacher extraordinaire Michael McCallie was forced to have his students, who would close out the show next, curtail the decibel level of their singalong.

 

Another feel-good Whirlwind moment entered the history books, alongside Wamp, Clark and Janney, Harr’s doo-wop turn and so many others.

 

But the whole two-hour show was an example of what makes the McCallie music department, the entire department, so impressive. 

 

From the opening number from the Men’s Chorus, which featured a cello solo from freshman Ife Collins on “If You Heard My Voice,” to VoCallie stepping up with “Barbara Ann,” and the traditional Appalachian spiritual “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?,” the positive energy inside the Chapel was noticeable.

 

Then came Brent Alverson directing the wind ensemble on three beautiful numbers, including “Prairie Dances,” the John Philip Sousa march “Liberty Bell,” and “the Pirates of the Caribbean Symphonic Suite.”

 

After that, the McCallie Men’s Chorus and GPS Singers took the stage for three songs, capped by gentle, lilting, melodic “Let Me Listen,” hopefully a keeper for future shows.

 

Then it was time for the McCallie String Orchestra to perform under the direction of Nichole Pitts, their first public appearance since their landmark March show at Carnegie Hall placed 38 students on the stage of the nation’s most famous music venue.

 

Said Pitts, who is sadly watching a large senior class she’s worked with since the sixth grade exit the program, “What happened on that Carnegie Hall stage wasn’t just a performance. Some of the greatest artists in the world have made something special happen on that stage. And what our kids did that day was just as amazing.”

 

Dr. Michael McCallie’s guitar groups are also amazing, and he, like Pitts, is saying goodbye to the first class of sixth graders he worked with for seven years. His students’ highlights on Sunday night included the Upper School Intermediate Ensemble’s deft handling of the Simon and Garfunkel classic “The Sound of Silence” and the Upper School Advanced Ensemble performing the Eagles’ “Hotel California.”

 

It was all Whirlwind at its most diverse and talent-laden, and as this 2025-26 school year rapidly draws to a close, the grand work done by the Music Department across so many platforms–Fall Recital, Candlelight, Symphonia Brumalis, the Carnegie Hall experience, Middle School Spring Concert, Whirlwind–perhaps deserves to be embraced by the timeless crowd response to  “Sweet Caroline”: “the good times never seemed so good.”