Youth Concerts

Youth Concerts

"Jazzing Up the Orchestra"
Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 10:00am and 11:30am

Click here for more information

Old Cabell Hall on the UVA Grounds

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 2018 Youth Concerts are supported by the Mr. and Mrs. James L. Brown Fund for Youth Concerts and The Watterson Foundation.

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 2018 Youth Concerts will be open in August 2018. Click here to read the invitation.

Note: The seats fill up quickly and we generally have a waiting list of over 300 students, so make your reservations early! Any group that reserves a large number of seats that go unused will receive lower priority when making reservations in the future.

For further information about Youth Concerts, please contact Elizabeth Roberts, Director of Youth Education, at ear4x@virginia.edu.