One Community, One Symphony

The One Community–One Symphony project is a unique opportunity for high school music students to delve deeply in to a piece of music from the orchestral cannon, study and learn about that piece and its history throughout the school year. The project culminates in the Spring when all participating school groups come together to perform the selected piece as a part of a mass band concert before hearing the WSO play the original orchestral version.

The inaugural OCOS project in 2008 saw participating schools working with Dvořák's seminal Symphony no. 9, "From the New World". Each school was given a single movement to play and choral ensembles performed the spiritual-like song "Goin' Home" taken from the Largo movement.

The second OCOS project occurred in 2010 and focused on Holst's The Planets. Band students performed together as a special “mass band” at the Windsor Armouries on the first half of the concert. The WSO performed a suite from The Planets on the second half of the concert, and were be joined by choral students performing John Williams’ Duel of the Fates from Star Wars and the patriotic chorale I Vow To Thee My Country that Holst quoted in Jupiter.

As a part of the OCOS project, WSO Music Director John Morris Russell and Assistant Conductor Peter Wiebe visited each school starting in the fall to rehearse with each ensemble and share their insight about the historical and musical context of this landmark symphonic work.

Information about the next OCOS will be available soon.