[학생 기자] CJMS Music Program Visit to the Dvorak Concert

Allison Yang/8th grade Cabin John MS

On Monday October 11, Mr. Scott Herman, Cabin John Middle School's orchestra and band director, offered his advanced students a Strathmore concert. Sixty-five students signed up - an unexpectedly large number, but indicative of Cabin John students' interest and passion for music.

Mr. Herman was so pleased by the large enrollment that he may offer a second visit. However, Strathmore gave tickets worth about $3.250 for us students - a very generous contribution to education and a significant financial loss, but one that will probably return several-fold when those ‘future’ musicians become ‘theater-goers’.

On Friday October 22, the students attending the concert were so excited they could hardly stay seated during orchestra class. Saturday October 23 was the Strathmore concert date. The National Philharmonic Orchestra were going to perform Dvor?k's two most popular pieces, Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B Minor, Op. 104, and Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, ‘From the New World’.

The first piece was the Cello Concerto, featuring Zuill Bailey -a world-renown cellist and native of Arlington, Virginia. Dvorak's concerto represented his journey to and from the United States. Unlike other pieces composed by him, the Cello Concerto did not contain any American folk music. His inspiration for this piece was Victor Herbert's Cello Concerto No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 30 (premiered in 1894). It comprises three contrasting movements.

The first movement, Allegro, is unhurried and melodic. There is an ongoing theme that begins with the clarinets and starts to build in the orchestra. The second movement, Adagio, ma non troppo, is slow and rich sounding. The cello plays an intense passage and is accompanied by a woodwind. The third movement, Allegro moderato, is varied and fast. It has one solo violin and cello. Dvorak completed this Concerto on February 9, 1895, toward the conclusion of his commission with the National Conservatory of Music in New York.

The second piece was the New World Symphony. I liked this piece because I enjoyed the tone and it was more familiar to me. Dvorak began writing this symphony during his first winter in New York, and completed it during a visit to the Czech immigrant community in Spillville, Iowa. This symphony, Dvorak emphasized, reflects ‘the spirit’ and Native American and African American tunes; embracing as it does the syncopated rhythms and pentatonic scales that he found common to both styles. In fact, it is a m?lange of those influences along with themes that Leonard Bernstein once traced to Scotland, France, Germany and Dvorak's native Bohemia - truly multi-cultural, reflecting the makeup of the society he found here.

School music programs are under-funded in our nation's current economic dilemma. While Montgomery County schools are in better financial condition than many others around the country, they too are obliged to curtail beneficial extra-curricular activities. In these frugal times especially, Strathmore's generosity is most deeply appreciated. They relinquished possible income from those seats in order to provide an invaluable musical experience to young musicians, all of whom feel very fortunate to have been in attendance. I hope this type of opportunity will recur with CJMS and with other area schools.