New Orchestra teacher Teresa Maclin believes she has the skills and experience needed to elevate Clover Hill’s performing arts.
For several years, the Orchestra program has been in a state of transition, going through three teachers in four years.
Though Maclin cannot remember what inspired her to take up music, she is quite happy she did. Starting on violin, she switched to cello after her teacher needed more cello players in 7th grade.
“My teacher convinced me [to take up cello],” Maclin said. “Because we needed some cello players in orchestra and then I did not have to bring my violin back and forth to school on the bus. It was the best decision I ever made.”
Though Maclin played all through middle and high school, she did not consider a career in music during high school. Maclin was born into a military family and had considered joining the service, up until she played pit in a production her junior year.
“I was looking at West Point [and] the Air Force Academy,” Maclin said. “The interaction with the theater and the music was just amazing; that was the hook. After I played in the school musical… I just never looked back after that.”
Maclin received a Bachelor of Education and Cello Performance at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. The university had student teaching opportunities that helped start her career.
“I did student teaching in Winston Salem, then got a job in Charlotte,” Maclin said. “I taught there for three years, high and middle school.”
Born in Fairfax, the distance between Charlotte and Fairfax started to wear on Maclin. This drive, to visit her family, seemed so arduous that, at one point, she considered flying home instead. Luckily, a spot opened for her in Fairfax.
“It was such a long drive [that] I was thinking of flying home, which sounds weird now. I had been talking with my previous teacher and it came about that she was going to step away to be with her family,” Maclin said. “[A] door just opened at the right time.”
A mere eight years after graduating from high school, she was back at Oakton High, this time as a teacher. Though it was quite strange teaching alongside staff she had known as a student, Maclin settled in and taught orchestra there for 13 years. During that time, she also taught middle school until she decided to start a family.
“I had babies so I took off from public school,” Maclin said. “I was teaching private cello lessons at home, while I was raising my boys, and I was doing cello clinics and visiting schools. I was keeping in touch with the community in Fairfax … and then my husband got a job here.”
During the pandemic, the family moved down to Chesterfield for her husband’s work. Still in online school through Fairfax when school started up again, her husband joked about getting an RV and roadschooling the boys.
“He was like, ‘You could drive around the country and do school on the road’ and I was like,’Yeah, that is ridiculous,’” Maclin said. “A couple of my friends were actually doing it… and I was like, ‘Maybe this is a thing?’ We talked about it and, within three weeks, we had an RV and off we went.”
Maclin “road schooled” her sons for nine months, hitting 35 states and putting 17,000 miles on the RV. The family visited several national parks and Maclin remembers it fondly. When she got back, Maclin wanted to get back into teaching.
“I was waiting for the right time to get back into public school,” she said. “Clover Hill was on the map and I thought,’[I] might as well look into it and here I am.’”
Since coming to Clover Hill, Maclin has had a positive experience.
“It is a nice school [and the] students are respectful, energetic, interesting and creative,” Maclin said. “The staff [is also] nice. So far so good.”
Maclin also brings some goals with her to this school. Besides building skills and improving the sound, she hopes to build out the Orchestra program.
“We’ll build more [and more] success and we can have a more robust enrollment,” Maclin said. “I hope to build community with this year’s kids and put music on the stand that they are interested in. [Music] that they are going to be challenged by but not overwhelmed.”
