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Join the Fanfare

For more than thirty years, the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra has made marvelous music for the community and the University of Virginia. Season after season, the unique collaboration among University students, faculty, professional principals, and gifted community players remains a source of tremendous civic pride and an emblem of the bond between the University and the community.

Thanks in great part to the tremendous support from loyal season subscribers and generous corporate and individual donors, the Charlottesville Symphony Society has reached its $3 million goal. These new funds will allow the Society to attract and retain the highest-caliber musicians, support existing outreach initiatives, provide scholarships, invite guest artists and guest conductors to perform, and expand programming.

The Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra needs other interested donors to sustain this momentum by participating in Fanfare for the Future. For more information, visit www.cvillesymphony.org/.

Music

With its liberal arts approach to the teaching of music, the McIntire Department of Music serves students with widely varying abilities; they range from uninformed listeners who wish to gain a basic appreciation of music and a grasp of its history to skilled professionals pursuing advanced work. All have the chance to study with gifted scholars and performers, whether for personal enrichment or for preparation for a career.

The faculty is a dynamic mix of musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and composers, as well as highly trained musicians who oversee the department’s instrumental and vocal ensembles and serve as principals in the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra.

Complementing scholarly strengths in such traditional areas as opera and orchestral music, the department has established subspecialties in African and African American music, jazz, and the music of Appalachia. The department is also noted for scholarship in critical, theoretical, and gender studies; an innovative program in comparative and critical studies; and a renowned composition program that has encompassed cutting-edge work in computer technologies.

The McIntire Department of Music has placed increasing emphasis on performance. Under the guidance of seasoned professionals, students have opportunities to pursue advanced musical training and to take part in ensembles devoted to music in many forms, including chamber music, new music, early music, jazz, computer music, opera, and African drumming and dance.

To maintain the department’s excellence and continued growth, increased funding for faculty and graduate students to carry on their work must be found. An endowed graduate fellowship in music, named at $600,000, will allow the College to recruit the most promising young scholars to the University by helping to support tuition, insurance, research, travel, and living expenses. Recruiting and retaining talented, creative faculty is another high priority. Endowed professorships, named from $3 million, enable the department to more effectively develop a faculty rich in talent and expertise.

To continue to attract outstanding undergraduate and graduate students, the department also seeks funding for new performance and rehearsal space.

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Lab Brass

Ali Khan, College '09

During the week, Ali Khan leans over Petri dishes and air hoods in a biochemistry lab. On the weekend, he carries a twenty-pound tuba as section leader for his instrument in the Cavalier Marching Band (CMB).

Not all members of the Cavalier Marching Band are music majors; they're a diverse group of students from all disciplines who happen to share a love of music.

Mr. Khan (College '09), for example, studies biochemistry and works in Jason Chruma's laboratory in the chemistry department. Mr. Khan's current project is attempting to synthesize a rare natural compound that has shown anticancer, antifungal, and antibacterial activity.

"In the future, I see myself as a highly regarded medical scientist who has a successful medical practice and a research lab that finds the cure for cancer," Mr. Khan said.

His hopes for the CMB are equally optimistic, and no wonder. In Mr. Khan's first year—and what was only the band's second year of existence, the CMB won the Battle of the Bands at the 2005 Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee, defeating the acclaimed University of Minnesota Golden Gopher Band.

"In the future, I hope the Cavalier Marching Band will be the best, most enthusiastic marching band in the nation," he said.