A Word From Mr. McElroy:

I have been the instrumental music director at San Juan Hills HS since the inception of the school in 2007. After 10 years as the music teacher at Aliso Niguel HS, I was honored to be selected as the planning team member for the Visual and Performing Arts department at San Juan Hills.  After starting with a few dozen Freshmen in 2007 with 1 band, 1 orchestra and a marching band (I also taught a couple classes of algebra), the program has exploded both in numbers and quality.  We now offer 3 string orchestras, 2 concert bands, and a marching band.  Because of the incredible theater at SJHHS, the music program has grown to utilize all the benefits it offers. One part that makes SJHHS unique is the year-round Symphony Orchestra. The collaboration between strings, winds, and percussion is something I’m especially very proud of.  The theater also has a legitimate pit area, so another highlight is the robust student involvement in the musical pit orchestra.  SJHHS offers 2 musicals per year, and each one typically has a roster of 40-60 students. They are annually nominated for top orchestra awards, and won the JRAY’s award for top orchestra for their performance of Les Miserables - which involved 60 musicians! They also received the CAPPIES award for top orchestra in their production of Chicago. in 2024, they swept the awards circuit by winning best orchestra from the CAPPIES for Cinderella and both the JRAY’s and MACY’s for Crazy for You.

Personally, I have been married to my high school sweetheart, Jennifer, for 29 years, and have 3 children - all who are/were members of the SJHHS Instrumental music program. Chris (class of 2016), (chrismcelroymusic.com) received is Master’s in Screen Scoring from USC, and is currently building his film scoring career in Hollywood. Melissa (Class of 2020) is a fantastic Oboe/English Horn musician who is also currently majoring in music, and Timothy is Freshman at UCLA majoring in Trombone Performance. I am an avid sports fan who cheers on the Lakers, Rams, and Chargers, but can most often be seen with my face buried in my hands in my seat at Angel Stadium (except for when I saw them win the World Series in 2002!!!!)

Professionally, I am easily the luckiest person I know. As a music major in education and trombone performance, I became very interested in conducting. Also, by teaching trombone lessons and leading study groups, I felt that I had a talent for communicating information. Those 2 interests/abilities match really well as a high school band/orchestra conductor. You can read the official vision statement on the syllabus, but to put it in my own words, I am well aware that most students will not move forward with music in their career (about the same percentage as students who actually use calculus in their chosen career). So, does learning music matter? Absolutely!!! First of all, for those students who have career aspirations in music, I have a responsibility to make sure they are prepared to move forward in that goal after high school - and I honor that. I have several former students who have careers in music, and I’m proud of all of them. However, for the vast majority of students who choose different career paths, their experience in music at SJHHS will change their lives for the better forever. Look at the face of a musician while they are performing. The concentration level is off the charts! The physical dexterity to match up left hand and right hand with the tongue or bow while controlling breathing patterns or bow pressure is as athletic (from a fine motor skill set perspective) as any sport. Now, take that cognitive focus and kinesthetic activity, and add to it an aesthetic interpretation - where musicians make decisions on how to convey thoughts, ideas, emotions, moods, etc. through their performance, and you have a collaboration of learning domains that can’t be found in any other school activity. Through participating in a creative experience, students become more creative people. Often, that statement gets shunned. It feels a little ‘hippie’ in a world where we want to emphasize more math, science, and technology. On the contrary - successful people have found a way to take their knowledge in their chosen career path and find a creative way to implement that knowledge. Many students learn a calculus equation, but only the creative ones learn how to apply that equation to create a solution to a real-world problem. I hope all my students gain all the knowledge they need to be successful in math, science, medicine, law, or whatever their career interests may be - but their music experience (not to mention the dedication, focus, thoughtfulness to detail and other character traits that are fostered in music performance) will prepare them to apply that knowledge in new and interesting ways to move them (and all of us) forward.

I believe all of the above with fierce passion, but it is still not my #1 reason for teaching music. What if you could have a conversation with Abraham Lincoln? Albert Einstein? Martin Luther? Julius Caesar? We can read their works, study their lives and accomplishments, but we can’t communicate with them. With music, we can (with great effort) participate in a work of art that Tchaikovsky wrote for professional Russian musicians - the same notes, the same musical ideas, the same thoughts, feeling, and emotions that he wanted to convey about his life, culture, political/historical events at the time he wrote it. If you haven’t played an instrument at that level, it’s a hard thing to describe, but the musicians know what I mean. If the local Symphony is playing Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, every patron will have a magical experience, but the non-musician can only appreciate it at a certain level. A musician who has never played the piece connects at an even deeper level - but the performing musician has a deep connection with the composer and the piece that is indescribable. It is my hope that all of my students are life-long musicians. For the vast majority that don’t move forward in a career in music, I hope that they find a community group to perform in, or they purchase a piano to play for fun, or expand their musical tastes to include major composers with their current tastes. Mostly, I hope that when they are my age and see that Dvorak 9 is being performed somewhere, they take their family to the concert. They point to one of the instruments and say, ‘I used to play that.’ When the symphony plays the bold melody that starts movement 4, they remember the experience they had in high school performing the same piece. That connection comes back to them. Perhaps they shed a tear. They sing along in their head and remember that cool countermelody that few others notice (but everyone feels). They had an encounter with one of the masters 20, 30 years earlier, but remember it like it was yesterday. This is what I hope to do as a music teacher.

A few quick stories - 1) I was watching ‘Only Murders in the Building,’ a TV series starting Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. In one scene, a bassoon player was practicing the solo in the Bercruse section in Firebird Suite. I started humming along. My daughter was watching with me, she started humming along too. My son was walking down the stairs. He looked at us, said, ‘Oh cool, Firebird,’ and started singing along as well. At that moment, I thought to myself, ‘This is what it’s all about.’ 2) One evening, I pulled up to school for a rehearsal, and kids were sitting around a car blasting Mussorsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition like they would any current song teenagers typically listen to. 3) The day after a concert, I heard a lot of commotion outside my office. I came out to see kids writing on my whiteboard several major orchestral works they wanted to play at the next concert. It was an incredible list, and I had no idea they even knew many of them existed. They’re discovering this music on their own!

When I interviewed for this job, the oldest of my 3 kids was 8. I said that my kids would be coming through the program, and I wanted to develop something that I would be proud to have my kids be involved with. I feel like that goal has been met, and it gives me great joy to give these experiences not just to my own kids, but to all who I’m fortunate enough to call my students.