Brambleton Middle School Symphonic Band Honored

The Brambleton Middle School Symphonic Band has been invited to perform at the Virginia Music Educators Association’s 2023 Professional Development Conference in November, the first middle school band from Loudoun to be invited to perform at the conference.

Under the direction of Martin Blount, Samantha Charriez and Colson Meekst, the band will perform for an audience of music teachers and families at the Richmond Convention Center.

The VMEA selection committee chose the school’s symphonic band through a blind audition of recordings submitted from across Virginia.

“This is a significant honor, and we are so proud of the work going on at

Brambleton Middle School. The recognition is the result of a recipe for success that includes outstanding instruction and leadership of the directors, the hard work of the students and support from the Brambleton Middle School administration and community,” Loudoun County Public Schools

Fine Arts Supervisor Michael Pierson said.

The purpose of the VMEA is to promote quality music education throughout the Commonwealth by providing leadership, instructional resources and professional development opportunities for Virginia’s music educators.

For more information, go to vmea.com. n was in first place or not.”

Bryan Mora, a student in one of the Academic Government classes who participated in the project, also attended Evergreen Mill Elementary School. He said it was a little emotional to go back to his elementary school and see his former teachers.

“I was thinking ‘I was once in their shoes.’ I know how it is to look at older people and be like ‘oh wow.’ It was crazy to be the older kid in that scenario,” he said.

Siblings Kamdyn Perley, a senior, and fourth grader Summer Perley said they enjoyed having lunch together after working on the project.

After the field trips, Cody and Thomas compiled the material into five books. All five books have the same basic content but use different methods of organizing and explaining the facts. They made final edits and uploaded them to be published and sold on Amazon.

Cody and Thomas said they hope to turn the project into a yearlong one and possibly get community sponsors for the books to be placed in community spaces like doctor’s office waiting rooms. They also want to team up with a Spanish class at the high school to help translate the books to make them accessible to more students.

Cody and Thomas said doing the project renewed their love of teaching, commenting after the field trip “this is why we do this.”

“The big kids got the little kids to come up to the next level, and everyone was able to come up to a different level than what they were used to producing, and that is really important,” Cody said.

The senior students said the project heightened their interest in government and history. Steel said she probably got a better grade this year than in years past thanks to Cody’s passion and the history book project.

“The project gave me more of a passion for learning about government,” Mora said. “Going into it, I thought ‘I don’t know how this is going to be,’ but Mrs. Cody, she’s passionate, and I saw that and it made me take a personal interest in it.”

Find the books on Amazon: Creation of American Democracy—Our Interpretation, by Mrs. Cody’s and Mrs. Hicks’ classes; Our Interpretation of the Creation of American Democracy, by Mrs. Cody’s and Mrs. Ferranti’s classes; Our Interpretation of the Creation of American Democracy, by Mrs. Cody’s and Mrs. Nazionale’s classes; Our Interpretation of the Creation of U.S. Democracy, by Mrs. Thomas’ and Mrs. Ater’s classes; and American Democracy: A Story, by Mrs. Thomas’ and Mrs. Hawes’ classes. n

Maggie McCabe is an intern at Loudoun Now and a rising sophomore at Davidson College majoring in political science.