Charlottesville Symphony - Youth Concerts
Please join the Charlottesville Symphony, its new Music Director Benjamin Rous, narrator John Mason and soprano Pamela Beasley for a rousing concert featuring traditional American songs: I Bought Me a Cat, Shenandoah, Simple Gifts, and Ching-a-Ring Chaw. Meet the families of the orchestra and explore the historical context of several American Masterworks as you listen to John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony, Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide and Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. Study guides with information about the composers, instrument descriptions, puzzles, word games and other activities are provided to all students in advance of the performances
Once again, the Charlottesville Symphony Youth Concerts are FREE. Funding is provided by the Charlottesville Symphony Society, the University of Virginia McIntire Department of Music, The Watterson Foundation and the Mr. and Mrs. James L. Brown Endowment Fund, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.
Free for public, private and home schools, but space is extremely limited and advance reservations are required. Education@cvillesymphony.org or 434-924-6505
Each October, the Charlottesville Symphony presents two free Youth Concerts in area fourth and fifth graders. These forty-five minute performances introduce students to orchestral instruments and serve as a recruiting tool for school band and orchestra programs. Students are invited to attend the concerts in the academic year before they have the opportunity to join their own school ensembles, assisting children in making educated choices about what instrument they would like to play. They are always popular with students, and serve for many as their first experience with live orchestral music. The concerts have enthusiastic support from local music teachers, who consider the concerts a part of their school’s music curriculum.
The Symphony’s first Youth Concerts were presented in 1977. Past programs include: A Musical Menagerie, Score One for the Orchestra, A Musical Forecast, Close Encounters of the Orchestral Kind, and Beethoven, Back to the Future. The concerts are supported by area foundations, businesses, individual contributors and the James and Judy Brown Fund.
Who is Eligible to Attend
Reservations for the concerts can only be made by school music teachers or administrators and by home-school groups. The concerts are NOT open to the public. Fourth and fifth graders who attend public and private schools 
in the Charlottesville region are invited to attend. Similar-aged home-school students are also invited to attend. Schools are expected to bring one grade level, unless the school has a special classroom situation that would require multiple grade levels to attend. For home-schooled families, siblings are welcome, however no one under age five will be admitted.
Reservations
Reservations for the 2017 Youth Concerts open in August 2017. Click here to read the invitation .
For further information about Youth Concerts, please visit the Charlottesville Symphony Youth Concerts page here or contact Elizabeth Roberts, Director of Youth Education, at Education@cvillesymphony.org or 434-924-6505