DC Youth Orchestra Summer Program

DC Youth Orchestra Summer Program: Earlier this week, Mayor Bowser announced that Covid-19 is expected to peak in DC in late May or early June. With current stay-at-home orders issued in DC, Maryland, and Virginia and with the closure of several school districts through the end of the school year, DCYOP has decided to continue our digital learning plan through the rest of our semester. We believe this is the safest option for our musical community.

Over the past few weeks, the DCYOP team has been working hard to adapt our programs to a virtual environment. DCYOP has a proprietary curriculum that was developed by our amazing faculty over the past 50 years. This curriculum guides our teaching every semester. We are happy to say that all students will receive their full curriculum this semester with our distance learning plan.

We are also excited to announce that we have partnered with a local production studio to produce professional videos of ALL of our orchestras! With their assistance, every student will have the opportunity to record a track of their playing. From there, Arts Laureate will layer these tracks on top of each other to create the sound of an ensemble. Our team is working with them to customize this process so that each ensemble’s experience is matched to their age and level.

Later this spring, we will announce a virtual concert date where we will premier these videos live on the internet. This is an opportunity to invite your friends and family both near and far to celebrate your child’s musical accomplishment. Evan, Rashida and Lucy will be in touch on the ensemble-level with more details.

For our Level A students, we will provide a step-by-step guide on how to prepare and record your own virtual concert for your family and friends. DCYOP hopes to share some of these concerts on our social media and website.

We know this is not what you envisioned when you signed up for DCYOP. When the Covid-19 impacted our ability to meet in-person, we made a decision to adapt our programs so that we could continue to provide your child with musical learning opportunities. We did not search for “alternative” programming—we committed to delivering our high-quality curriculum another way, to fulfilling our mission of “music for young people; achievement for life”, regardless of the challenges, and to keeping our nonprofit doors open—at least virtually—so that we can continue to reach musical heights together. We are so grateful for you, our students, families and faculty, who have taken this journey with us. I’ve said this before, but the strength and spirit of our musical community is inspiring. From all of us here in DCYOP, thank you for being a part of it.

DC Youth Orchestra Summer Program: We have created a Distance Learning FAQ to provide more detailed answers to some of the questions we have received. Please see below!

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