Music Means the World to Me

Over 1,000 area students attended the annual Young People’s Concerts
Marcy Day

 “I haven’t thought of being in an orchestra, but the way you played the music makes me want to be in one. One day I will play beautiful music.” - Cale Elementary Student

On Thursday, October 11, 2007, the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra performed its annual Young People’s Concerts in the Old Cabell Hall Auditorium. The theme for this year’s program was Music Means the World to Me. The orchestra was led by its Music Director, Kate Tamarkin, and the program was narrated by local actor and singer, Johanna Chase, who also serves as the President of the Charlottesville Symphony Society Board of Directors. Musical selections represented numerous countries throughout the world, including China, Hungary, the United States, Austria, Mexico and Finland. Works by the following composers were performed: Bernstein, Vaughan Williams, Strauss, Brahms, Saint-Saens, Ravel, Ellington and Sibelius. The concerts were funded by Virginia National Bank, Target, the Mr. and Mrs. James L. Brown Fund, the Charlottesville Symphony Society, the McIntire Department of Music, and an anonymous foundation. The concerts were free for all who attended.

Approximately 1150 people attended the concerts. Volunteers from the Charlottesville Symphony Society and other friends of the Symphony assisted with the logistics of the event, helping the students get from their buses to their seats in the auditorium. The audience was comprised of fourth and fifth grade students who represented eighteen public and private schools in the Charlottesville area, as well as home-schooled children from local communities. The annual concerts serve to help local schools in recruiting students for their instrumental music programs. Children who attend the concerts are usually within a year or two of selecting an instrument to play in their school band or orchestra. Attending the program can give them a window into the opportunities that lie ahead of them, and can assist them as they select an instrument to play. Prior to the concerts, the music teachers and parent educators are provided with program booklets for each child, a recording of the music that will be performed, and a list of activities to do with their students that relate to the Virginia Standards of Learning.

Many of the teachers who attended this year’s programs said that they believe this year’s concert was the best yet, and a number of students wrote to the orchestra after the concert, telling of how inspired they were by the music. One young student at Cale Elementary wrote, “It was so inspiring. One day I want to be in a band.” Another student, after ‘visiting’ nine different countries by listening to music representative of each throughout the performance, said, “It was the best thing I have ever seen. It felt like I was in the place that the song was made in!”