Violin Notes: Orchestra Teacher Jenifer van Tol, Local Legend

Violettes "Violin Notes" is an interview of orchestra teacher Jenifer van Tol. She is a local legend as highly successful teachers go. Most interviews, as the excerpt below, tell of her enormous success as a high school orchestra teacher. However, Violettes is interested in her musical upbringing and background that brought her to this high school work.)An excerpt from KnoxNews.com article by Rebecca Williams dated Feb. 1, 2011:"Van Tol has orchestra on her mind most of the time.At 63, she is known in the Oak Ridge City Schools for her quiet and efficient direction of this award-winning strings program for 23 years. Under her leadership, the high school orchestra has grown from 16 players in 1988 to 160 players today. It is the largest school orchestra in the southeastern region of the United States, she said.The orchestra has its own website, a booster club, racks of trophies, and a steady stream of cookie dough for sale to fund its spring competitions from Branson, Mo., to Carnegie Hall in New York City, and this year’s in Annapolis, Md.Nearly 600 children and teens — that’s 14 percent of Oak Ridge students — are taking orchestra classes in grades four-12 this year and are taught by van Tol and three other strings teachers."________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________