“Andrea Diggs, who plays flute with the Charles Washington Symphony Orchestra, said the local 5-year-old ensemble dispels preconceived ideas that symphony orchestras are serious, stuffy and elitist,” writes Richard Belisle in Monday’s (12/11) Herald Mail (Hagerstown, MD). Digg, also the orchestra’s board president, says “ ‘Our goal is to engage the community, to take our music to them and venture out from formal settings. That’s why we play all over the place.’ … The orchestra performs with around 40 musicians. The members, who range in age from 12 to the 90s, rehearse weekly at Charles Town Middle School. Camilo Perez-Mejia of Charles Town [is] the orchestra’s conductor and one of its cellists…. Perez-Mejia teaches music at Saint James School in Fairplay, the Barbara Ingram School for the Arts in Hagerstown and teaches cello … at Shepherd University. The orchestra breaks down into duets, trios and chamber groups to play at venues around the area…. The members also [founded] a youth orchestra … two years ago [and] hired a conductor to lead the orchestra. No Jefferson County public school teaches violin.… The orchestra performs three to four concerts a year.”
Posted December 13, 2017
