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A Valentine gift sent with a bow
Area students provide needed strings for symphony concert for American soldiers, veterans.
Date published: 2/7/2006
By PAMELA GOULD ARLINGTON--Being on stage with Cokie Roberts, Ed McMahon and Adrian Cronauer--the disc jockey whose story was told in the movie, "Good Morning, Vietnam!"--neither dazzled nor distracted a group of Fredericksburg-area teens yesterday. What did capture the violinists' and cellists' attention was their locale and who would be watching their performance. About a dozen string musicians from Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County performed at the Pentagon auditorium yesterday as part of the Veterans Affairs National Medical Chorale and Symphony Orchestra. The group, mostly VA doctors, nurses and other medical personnel from around the country, came up short for its string section for this performance and put out a plea for help. William Wassum, a private strings instructor and orchestra director at Thornburg Middle School, had played with the VA group before and rounded up some local talent. The students and VA musicians and singers rehearsed for three days before taping the 90-minute concert, which will be broadcast to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world on Valentine's Day. The program will also be played at VA centers around the country. "It was exciting," said cellist Josh Wassum, a junior at Riverbend High School and one of William Wassum's three children to participate. "I feel honored to be part of it. "The best thing, really, is to be able to play for the troops." The concert was billed as a "Musical Love Letter to the Troops from the Pentagon." Roberts, a well-known Washington journalist, co-hosted with McMahon, who warmed up the crowd by asking them to bellow out "Hi-Ohhhhh," a reminder of the booming voice that heralded late-night talk-show host Johnny Carson for decades. Raquelle Cedres, a Courtland High School sophomore, admitted a moment of star-gazing before the program. "I shook hands with Ed McMahon," the violinist said. "He was really nice." "It's a great experience because it's not every day high school kids get to play with people like this," said Christian Aldridge, a Courtland freshman who plans to continue with his music at least through college. Katie Martino, in her first year of studies at Germanna Community College, soaked up the atmosphere of the Defense Department headquarters yesterday. She rode around the structure and was amazed to see the total restoration where terrorists slammed a jetliner into the building on Sept. 11, 2001. Once inside, she was enthralled to be where her maternal grandfather, an Air Force general, had worked. "I've grown up hearing stories about the Pentagon so it's really neat to walk through here," she said. Joanne Kent, a junior at Massaponax High School, had her own audience of family, friends and boyfriend at yesterday's event. Her focus, though, was on what she was giving. "It was really, like, nice, that I was able to do something for the troops on Valentine's Day," Kent said after the program. But she also found inspiration in the experience. "The concertmaster was really good," she said. "I was thinking maybe I could be that good one day." To reach PAMELA GOULD:
Date published: 2/7/2006
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