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VIRGINIA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
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Local, State, and National Educational Television Outreach
The VCO has always been dedicated to the mission of sharing fine music with the broadest possible audience, focusing especially on students of all ages. Founding VCO members toured by bus to areas of the Commonwealth where orchestral concerts were seldom or never offered. Since 1998 the orchestra has taken the lead among all area arts organizations in reaching millions of young listeners nationwide by “touring” electronically via satellite-delivered educational television programs. The orchestra was honored to be the first musical organization partnering with the Fairfax Network, the nation’s leading provider of high quality educational television programming for grades k-12. Other distinguished Fairfax Network collaborators include NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, to name just two. George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate collaborated with the VCO and the Fairfax Network for History Notes: Music in Washington’s World in April 2010. The VCO independently produced four programs which are beneficial for college students and educators when used singly or as a series: Music from the Age of Enlightenment, Music from the Baroque Epoch, Music from the Romantic Era, and Music by Modern Masters. Each production focuses on a major period in music history, touching briefly on literature, philosophy, visual arts, and general history of the period and relating the musical content to other college subjects as well. Guest Moderator is Aubrey Davis, host of the award-winning AROUND TOWN program of cultural commentary on public television’s Channel 26. Ted Libby, the distinguished classical music commentator for National Public Radio and a former music critic for the New York Times, was a guest panelist for the Wonders of Geography program. Programs are made available at no cost to public schools and colleges in the metropolitan area, the Commonwealth, and across the entire continental United States.
Streaming Video Programs At the suggestion of The Capitol Connection at George Mason University the VCO recently began streaming free videos of selected educational programs. They are enhanced with both their original study guides and new lesson plans created by outstanding instructors from the Fairfax County Public Schools. The lesson plans relate the programs to the Virginia and National Standards of Learning. The VCO is honored that the National Association for Music Education (MENC) has begun posting the lesson plans and drawing the attention of their 60,000 teacher members to the streaming video programs.
Wonders of Geography: A Musical Atlas of America is currently being streamed on the GMU Capitol Connections Web site. The Musical Side of Thomas Jefferson is now being streamed on the Web site of VEMEA (the Virginia Elementary Music Educators Association).
Originally targeted to public school students, this program was subsequently requested for broadcast to all community colleges nationwide, via an uplink at George Mason University's Capitol Connection. The Claude Moore Charitable Foundation bestowed a special grant in 2010 enabling a free streaming video of the Jefferson program around the clock for eleven months.
Time: 75 minutes (original version) / 40 minutes (edited version)
The Virginia Chamber Orchestra, supplemented by additional instruments, performs selections that transport students to sites including Mount St. Helens, the Grand Canyon, the Mississippi River, and the Appalachian Mountains. Studio guests discuss the physical and cultural features of each region and how those sights and sounds inspired American composers. Live in the studio, students demonstrate percussion instruments used in the musical examples.
Joseph McLellan, the late chief music critic at The Washington Post, called this “a marvelous enhancement of two subjects by having them interact.”
Students and budding musicians develop an appreciation for classical music as the Virginia Chamber Orchestra performs excerpts from major works by the composers. The program is structured so that it can be used in segments as well as in its entirety. Spoken material, musical examples, and award-winning graphics illustrate basic musical concepts.
Student hosts travel to such 18th century sites as Gadsby’s Tavern for an 18th century ball and a conversation with General Washington; Pohick Church to hear 18th century hymns sung by the West Potomac High School Colonial Singers; and Mount Vernon where the United States Army Old Guard introduces them to music as a form of communication on the battlefields of the American Revolution.
The Virginia Chamber Orchestra performs concert music popular in Washington's time. Historians David Hildebrand and Larry Earl introduce students to a new understanding of 18th century America revealed through music.
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Watch the streaming video (40 min.)
Lesson Plans
Father of the Waters midi file
