
Notes from Cory on his high school teaching career…
I was given the opportunity to create and teach an innovative music program from the ground up at Pinewood School in Los Altos Hills, California, and I loved it… except, of course, all the damn kids.
In five years, Pinewood evolved from a school with no music courses to one with a mandatory freshman music history course, an
Pinewood Singers

The photos above are of from my final concert as Director of the Pinewood Singers on a beautiful May evening in Silicon Valley.

For this Director and several seniors, it closed four years of hard work and play. For others, it represented one very memorable year that included our fully staged production of Sondheim‘s “Into The Woods” to standing-room-only audiences on multiple nights; our performance of Haydn‘s “Te Deum” with the Menlo orchestra and choir; our national anthem performances at basketball state championship playoffs; our
Here’s the beautiful final song, of the beautiful final performance, I conducted as Director of the Pinewood Singers — “Dirait-on” by Morten Lauridsen…
SWARM
Each semester for five loud years, SWARM (“Students Writing And Recording Music”) students wrote and recorded their own
Here’s one student on the impact of the SWARM program on his life, and below are some highlights from every SWARM album recorded at Pinewood. Each of these songs was produced and recorded by the students, and most were written by the students too. I get a big smile on my face every time I listen to them — and I do go back and listen to them on occasion, to remind myself of my time with these amazing kids — and I hope you enjoy them too.
— Cory Cullinan