For The Kids: Holy Fiction Plays with the Dulles Middle School Symphony Orchestra, Next Month

Got word about a very cool-sounding show coming up at the start of next month — Saturday, February 4th, specifically — and wanted to mention it up here so maybe-maybe folks will spread the word somewhat.

The truly excellent {Holy Fiction}, whom I admire the heck out of (seriously, check out 2010’s jaw-droppingly gorgeous, impassioned Hours From It), will be performing a one-time-only show with the Dulles Middle School Symphony Orchestra down in Sugar Land, as a benefit to raise funds for new instruments and facilities for the Dulles MS kids.

Apparently HF violinist Sally Tawfik does music lessons at the school (I’m told several members of the band are teachers, actually) & learned how badly the Dulles orchestra program needs help, so the band decided to actually play alongside the orchestra itself. Tawfik’s reportedly scored seven Holy Fiction songs — both off of Hours From It and new stuff — which, at least to me, is pretty badass. I can only imagine what a full orchestra playing behind the band’s music will sound like, but it really-truly can’t help but be freaking incredible.

Beyond the whole “wow, that sounds cool!” aspect of things, of course, there’s also the underlying issue of funding for music in schools. Music (and art in general) seems to have borne the brunt of a lot of the cutbacks going on in schools all across the country — heck, my own daughter’s school, despite being relatively well-funded and with an active base of parents continually doing stuff, lost their lone art teacher last year and didn’t have the money to hire a new one (so they got one of the language teachers to teach art, instead…sigh).

To me, that’s a tragedy. Teaching children about art — and more specifically in this case, about music — should be a fundamental part of education. I honestly don’t know what kind of a person I’d be today if I hadn’t been exposed to music by way of my middle-school choir and band classes.

Granted, I was never good enough at an actual instrument to play in an orchestra/band at school, and my voice broke horribly during that choir class (right in the middle of “Kumbahya”) and never really recovered, but still, that early exposure showed me how incredible music could be, and that there actually was music out there that was good that I didn’t hear on the top-40 countdown. The thought of kids being deprived of that experience both saddens and infuriates me, considering the amount of money that goes to far, far less essential things.

Anyway, I’ll get down off my soapbox. Just do me a favor and make it out to the show. It’s early — starts at 7PM — so you can still drive on back up from the Land of Sugar in time to catch all the other awesome shows going on up in H-town proper that night. Tickets are $5 for Dulles MS students and $10 for everybody else. Do it for The Kids, y’all.

Oh, and while we’re kinda-sorta on the subject of Holy Fiction, the band’s currently up in Austin working with producer/engineer Louie Lino (who’s also worked with Nada Surf & matt pond PA) to finish up their followup to Hours From It.

They’re not sure when it’ll be out — apparently they’re talking with several different labels about releasing it, which is excellent to hear — and guitarist Matthew Geissler says the forthcoming album’s “slightly less folkish” than HF’s previous stuff, “with a dash of [M]otown here and there,” which sounds very, very cool; I’m seriously looking forward to it.