Title:
A Student Orchestra, Where the Players Decide What
to Play
Description: This is
a VOA Special English General News Report.
See text below
Text:
Matthew Martz has always loved music. Matt was a
high school student when he formed the Student
Symphonic Orchestra of Fairfax. It began with 12
friends from school. One of them was Michelle Bui.
MICHELLE BUI: "Matt is one of my very good friends.
So I did it as a friend, but also because I love
playing the violin."
Michelle likes the orchestra because its members
choose the music they will play.
MICHELLE BUI: "We've played some pop music. We're
playing 'Phantom of the Opera.' We're playing John
Williams, who is a famous composer who did 'Indiana
Jones' and 'Star Wars' and 'Superman,' in addition
to the classical music."
Lizzie Culbertston plays French horn.
LIZZIE CULBERTSON: "It has a really, really
versatile sound, first of all. I can do so many
things with it. It can be really pretty or it can be
really angry. It can go higher or lower."
The Student Symphonic Orchestra now has more than 30
members, including Nicholas Black. He likes the
group because its music is more difficult than what
he plays for his school orchestra.
NICHOLAS BLACK: "The music here is much more
complicated, it's a lot harder. But I think it's
partly because it's also with woodwinds and brass,
and basically with a band. At school, we do just
strings. We don't have a complete orchestra or
anything."
Thirteen year old Kanika Sahi is the youngest
member.
KANAKA SAHI: "They just show me how to read better,
different techniques of playing, stuff like that."
Matt Martz says having musicians of different ages
and abilities is not a problem.
MATT MARTZ: "If there is a player who hasn't been
playing for very long, I try to keep them next to
the section player, you know, or leader as we call
it, that has been playing a while so they can always
ask a question and say, 'Hey, I don't know what that
means.'"
Matt is now in college, where he studies music. But
he returns to the Washington area and works with the
orchestra every weekend.
MATT MARTZ: "This experience is teaching me how to,
more or less, teach teenagers. How to say, you know,
okay we're having a problem with this section, let's
clap it, let's sing it."
The orchestra is a not-for-profit group. Any
donations pay for things like sheet music.
MATT MARTZ: "Our first concert, we made $1,100,
which was fantastic. That helped pay for a lot of
music that we had purchased. And then this last
concert in January, we made over $1,500, which is
just incredible."
Matt Martz says he hopes the orchestra will continue
to grow and present a wider mix of music. I'm Mario
Ritter.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
