Virginia Music Adventures Delights Home Crowd with Concert

After a nine-day tour of Russia, the Virginia Music Adventures (VMA) returned home for a welcome home concert on May 6 at the Richard J. Ernst Community Cultural Center on the Annandale campus of .

The Annandale-based non profit organization is comprised of local students from the Northern Virginia area, ranging in age from 12 to 18, who perform in two groups: the Annandale Jazz Ambassadors and the Chapel Square Combo.

“We give students in the area an opportunity to rehearse and perform a wide variety of music and then to take these performances on international goodwill tours that we coordinate through the State Department,” said Jeff Cummins, artistic director for Virginia Music Adventures, Inc.

Students from Vienna include Scott Kappler, Jeffrey Hansen, Patrick Hansen, Joe Schefer, Gabriel De Los Santos and Matthew Sollinger, all from Madison High School;Kellyn Lott from The New School; Chris Fleisher from St Alban's Schooll and Kevin McMahon from St. Mark's.

When performing overseas, VMA prepares music that pays tribute to the country they’re visiting and its influence on American jazz. Friday’s show was no exception.

“[The Welcome Home Concert is a] tribute to American jazz and its influence on Russian culture,” Cummins said, adding that they commissioned a work that includes four movements of traditional Russian folk songs, treated in an American jazz style.

VMA shared the stage with the Krasnodar Big Band from Russia who is visiting the U.S. for the first time. As part of their tour, they played at the Georgetown Jazz Festival on April 30 [check out a video of their performance here on YouTube] and at the Carlyle Club on May 2.

While in Russia, VMA played several community performances organized by the Krasnodar Big Band and visited St. Petersburg for three days. Cummins credits the State Department with their success overseas and the U.S. Russia Business Council, a non-profit organization that links American and Russian businesses together, for helping organize Friday’s event.

“The State Department is very supportive of us. They have an incredible team both here in the U.S. and overseas. They really made our trip special and we couldn’t have had the success we’ve had without them,”  Cummins said.

Cummins said the group performs three tours a year: one with the Ambassadors and two smaller tours with the Chapel Square Combo. The Ernst Cultural Center serves as the group’s home stage.

They perform at events like dances and toy drives for several non profits in the Northern Virginia area, including Shelter House and the Vienna-Tysons Regional Chamber of Commerce. They also rehearse at the .

“We’re teaching our young musicians the value of community service locally and also when they’re traveling as goodwill ambassadors,” Cummins said.

All funding for VMA is self-generated through donations from individuals and organizations and through ticket sales to their performances. Typically, VMA has between 30 and 50 students enrolled in their school-year and summer programs. The school-year program runs from October through May and the summer program lasts for three or four weeks in July.

To learn more about Virginia Music Adventures, visit their website.