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Highlander named Virginia Orchestra Director of the Year
McLEAN - Gretta F. Sandberg, orchestra director of McLean High School in McLean, and a part-time resident of Highland County, has been named the 2006-07 Orchestra Director of the Year by the Virginia Chapter of the American String Teachers Association.
The award was presented June 6 in conjunction with the McLean High School Spring Orchestra Concert by Helen Fall, president of VASTA.
The McLean Chamber Soloists, one of three string orchestras at McLean High School, presented a concert last August at The Highland Center as part of a retreat the group held at Bear Mountain Farm and Wilderness Retreat, and which included a master-class session with the resident string players at Garth Newel Music Center in Warm Springs.
The chamber soloists will be returning to Bear Mountain for another retreat this August and will present a concert at The Highland Center on Sunday, Aug. 26 at 2 p.m.
Sandberg has been orchestra director since 1995 at McLean High School, part of the Fairfax County School System. She also is the principal string teacher at Haycock Elementary School in McLean. Previously she taught strings in the Arlington Public School System. She began her music teaching career in Kirksville, Ind., in a two-room school house.
In her presentation remarks, Fall noted Sandberg decided to become a high school orchestra director when she was in the eighth grade in Two Harbors, Minn. In the ensuing years her accomplishments included the creation of two county-wide orchestras during her Arlington County years. Since coming to McLean, she has fostered and grown a unique exchange program with the Detmold, Germany Youth Orchestra. The Detmold group visited McLean last month where they combined with the awardwinning McLean Chamber Soloists in a concert. The McLean group will travel to Detmold next January for a similar week of music and international exchange.
Sandberg received her bachelor of science in music education from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and her master's in education from George Mason University. She resides in Arlington, (when not spending time in Highland County) with her husband, Lewis Freeman, and son, Oliver Freeman. Her daughter, Tama Whitelaw, and her family, Jamie, Willow, and Maya, reside in Highland County.
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