St. Charles High School’s fine arts program is directed by powerful female role models. From visual arts to performing arts, SCHS has a strong reputation for success and greatness. The females in this department have yet to fail to inspire and embolden their students.
Amanda Davis is St. Charles High’s Orchestra Director and AP Music Theory teacher. For the many years she has been here, she has grown and shared many memories with the rest of the arts department. Choir director Courtney Gibson was even invited to her wedding.
“When we started talking to each other at the new teacher orientation, we started talking about musicals right off the bat,” Davis said. “From there I knew, and I think she knew, our working relationship would be amazing.”
Davis continues to add that they share a lot of personal interests, as well as students for those who are in choir and orchestra. Davis has also grown a strong relationship with SCHS’s Band Director Dinah Hotz who is new to the school this year.
“Ms. Hotz was easy to welcome in because she is an amazing musician, a strong leader, and willing to work hard to keep the reputation of the music department strong,” Davis said.
Hotz and Davis share an office in the band/orchestra room. They enjoy venting and gossiping together as if they are best friends. Hotz said that they like to hype each other up and be each other’s biggest supporters.
“One time I was listening to one of her clips from Large Ensemble and I texted her after and was like you should submit this to MMEA because you are ready for it,” Hotz said.
Not only do Davis’s coworkers adore her and her work, but her students do too. This year three of her students chose her as their VIP for the senior’s Evening With the Stars event. She hopes that she instills the ideas in her students that high school memories are important, and that the students’ hard work practicing pays off in the performance.
Many students’ biggest musical inspiration is their orchestra director Davis, but her biggest inspirations are the violinist Hilary Hahn, and Marin Alsop. Hilary Hahn inspires Davis with the way she carries herself while performing.
“When you are watching her perform, she’s feeling the music in a way I wish I could replicate when I’m conducting,” Davis explained.
With Marin Alsop, she enjoys how she shows that women are strong and empowering, while also soft and have emotions. She too, is an inspiration to her conducting.
One of band director Dinah Hotz’s inspirations is composer Julie Giroux. She looks up to Giroux because of her breaking through the male-dominated field of composing music. She also loves Dr. Shanti Simon, who directs the band at the University of Oklahoma. She sees Simon as a powerful woman. Hotz hopes to instill the same empowering mindset into her students.
“Allowing themselves to be vulnerable, and make mistakes, and grow from that because what we do is so vulnerable. We are putting all of our hard work on a pedestal and on stage,” Hotz said.
This year was Hotz’s first year at St. Charles High, yet she has built a strong relationship with her students and office buddy Amanda Davis. She was chosen as a VIP at Evening With the Stars for becoming one of her student’s biggest inspirations as a person, and musically, in such a short time. This is a good example of the light she brings to the school, especially the performing and fine arts department.
During this 2026 music department field trip to Nashville, Tennessee, Gibson, Davis, and Hotz created closer friendships with each other. They all hung out together while still looking after their students.
“One student was like, ‘you know you guys don’t have to hangout,’ and we were like, ‘we want to!’” Hotz said.
Courtney Gibson is not only the choir director, but also the new upcoming theater teacher at SCHS. She already does the musical, and will now direct the plays too. Gibson said her mom was the whole reason she got into theater, so she is her biggest inspiration. Gibson’s mom would direct shows for community theater and she would tag along.
“I used to sit in between the seats and read because I didn’t want to do theater,” Gibson said.
It wasn’t until she was 13 or 14 when she felt like theater was something she wanted to do. Eventually with coming to terms that this is something she loves and is capable of, she went to college and got her undergraduate degree in theater. Up until this year, she has only done musicals for the school. She got help from other people in the fine arts department like Davis, and one of the art teachers Christine Hilburn. She is also looking forward to getting help from the other art teacher Stephanie Albert.
“Ms. Albert said she could do specialty props, so I will be using that for the play next year,” Gibson said.
Hilburn has helped build and do art for the sets of Gibson’s musicals. Davis runs and conducts the musical pit for all of her musicals. This year, Hotz played in one night’s performance because the student playing the bari saxophone wasn’t able to attend.
With all of the arts being connected in some way, Gibson hopes that her students remember to find some way to keep it in their lives, whether that be doing community theater or choir, or starting a band, or being an audience member at the Fox, or Muny. Art will forever be in the world, so we should find a place for it within us.
“[Art is] just another form of communication,” Albert said. “Whether it’s communicating to other people or it’s between you and the artwork.”
Albert wants her students to realize that art is just another way of expressing how you feel. It is universal. She explained that if you go to another country it could be difficult to use your words to ask where the bathroom is if you don’t verbally speak their language, but you could draw a picture of a toilet and they would point you in the direction of the nearest restroom. This is an important lesson from Albert to her students.
“[I want them] to express themselves in a way that makes them happy,” Albert said.
Although Ablert is inspired by all artists, one she could pick from is Amy Sherald. She does portraits of women.
“[I love] the way that she composes her work and the way she uses grey scale to show the skin color of people, like that isn’t a black person or a white person,” Albert said.
In a similar manner, one of Hilburn’s favorite empowering woman artists is Bisa Butler. Butler creates art within quilts. Hilburn enjoys her work because she takes making quilts, a typical “women task,” and turns it into something so empowering and spectacular. This shows a lot of young artists that art is more than just drawing lines on a piece of paper, art has meaning.
“Art is bigger than just this one technique. It can change your perspective on things,” Hilburn said.
She wants her students to realize that she isn’t asking them to create a masterpiece or their best work. It’s okay when things aren’t precise.
“Art is not about making perfect things. It’s fun and good for your spirit,” Hilburn explained.
Art is not only created with your hands drawing and sculpting, or playing an instrument, or using your voice to sing. It is also created with a camera. St. Charles High’s Photography teacher Lauren Hippe helps students feel confident with their imagination and creations without a pencil and paper.
“Just because you can’t create art with your hands, doesn’t mean you can’t create art. We live in such a visual world, that if you start to understand that, …the more you understand that visual language,” Hippe said.
Despite not being able to create art with her hands, Hippe still has strong friendships with the fine arts department, especially with Hilburn and Albert.
“They are very supportive, especially of me who kind of feels like a poser,” Hippe said. “They have treated me kindly, which I appreciate.”
With English 2 not being in her teaching schedule next year, Hippe is looking forward to spending more time with the art teachers. Someone who has inspired her to photograph her best work is photographer Cindy Sherman.
“She has built a career of taking photos that mostly involve her. She dresses herself in these extensive costumes and photographs herself,” Hippe said.
All of the fine arts are connected in some way, shape or form. With these strong women leading the fine arts in St. Charles High, students and staff have come to realize that. With female role models pushing these teachers to reach their best artistic and creative selves, they have learned to instill those ideas into their students.
