Welcome and Bio

Welcome to Orchestra Hickory High School Families. We're going to have an exciting year. We'll be meeting in a new room, almost doubling the size of the Orchestra, and celebrating sixty years of string instruction in the Hickory Public Schools.

The HHS Orchestra has a tradition of outstanding performances. Venues have included Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center Tully Hall, Bruton Parish Church in Colonial Williamsburg and our concert home this season at Grace Chapel on the campus of Lenoir-Rhyne University. The Orchestra earned forty consecutive superior ratings at State Contest Festival.

Sally Ross has taught Orchestra in the Hickory Public Schools since 1991 serving children at College Park, Grandview, Northview and Hickory High School. She has been named the Northview Teacher of the Year, the NC Music Educators Orchestra Teacher of the Year twice and was awarded the NCMEA Orchestra Section LIfetime Achievement Award in 2020. She failed miserably at retirement (while enjoying it immensely)and rejoined HPS in 2021 as HHS Orchestra Director. She holds a B.Music in Cello Performance from the University of Toledo, a M. Music in Cello Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University with additional study at Hartt School, University of Hartford. She also hold a M. Education degree from Milligan College. She has played in the Toledo Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony, the Kingsport Symphony, the Asheville Symphony, the Winston-Salem Symphony, the Western Piedmont Symphony and the Salisbury Symphony. She also teaches cello and String Techniques at Lenoir-Rhyne University.

She lives in Hickory with her husband John, retired music director of the Western Piedmont Symphony and their wildly entitled rescue Jack Russell mix, Edith.