Catholic school girls get involved in DC classical music radio channel 

CV NEWS FEED // Over the past two years, Catholic school girls have started participating in Washington, D.C.’s classical radio channel by voting for their favorite classical pieces and upending the yearly “Classical Countdown.”

Carrie Gress writes at the Theology of Home that D.C. radio channel WETA (90.9) hosts the annual countdown, inviting listeners to vote on their favorite classical piece. The radio plays the top 100 choices during Thanksgiving week, and for years, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Ode to Joy) won the contest.

But in 2022, a local music teacher, Alix Baldwin at the all-girls Oakcrest School in Vienna, Virginia, encouraged her class to vote, telling them that maybe the Ninth Symphony did not have to win again.

Baldwin explained to WETA that she teaches a music appreciation class for sophomores at Oak Crest. Her class decided to all vote for Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” 

Baldwin referenced the fact that Vivaldi famously conducted and composed works for an all-girl’s orchestra. She explained, “He had an all-girls orchestra, we’re an all-girls school … it just works.”

Baldwin told her students that if their choice landed in the top three, she would consider it a “great success,” and the girls convinced her to throw a “Four Seasons Party” if they secured first place for their favorite piece.

Gress states that one of Baldwin’s students said, “Our class decided that Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons needed some recognition (that is not to say that we don’t like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – we love it, but it’s already received its due recognition, in our opinions). Everyone went home, voted, got friends and family to vote.”

Baldwin said that after Thanksgiving dinner, she and her husband turned on the radio, listening to the last songs in the Classical Countdown. 

“I had noticed that we hadn’t had the Four Seasons, or ‘The Ninth’ yet, and things were getting close to the end,” she recalled. “Had they, I wondered, managed to push the Vivaldi to number 2? But no! Because number 2 on the Classical Countdown was the Beethoven!”

She said that her husband joked, “What did you DO?” They waited 80 minutes for the Ninth to conclude, and then the radio announced, “This year’s Classical Countdown number one selection: The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi.” 

Gress adds that some residents of the D.C. area were “outraged” that Beethoven lost the top spot, especially since in 2022 WETA changed the voting rules so that one person could only vote for three pieces of music, one per device.

In 2023, girls from Oakland decided to vote and encourage others to vote for Gustav Holst’s The Planets. The main theme of the movement Jupiter was later used as the melody for the hymn Oh God Beyond All Praising.

That year, Holst’s masterpiece came in second place, right after Beethoven’s Ninth.

This year, the girls are voting for Modest Mussorgsky‘s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Those interested can vote for WETA’s Classical Countdown at this link.