Ms. Brianna Ornstein

Hello Cardinal Ridge! I'm very excited to embark on my first flight at CRE. I'm originally from Springfield, Virginia, and I'm currently a northern Virginia-based music educator and instrumentalist. I have my bachelor’s in music education from Ithaca College in New York, where I focused on K-12 education. I have also performed in both the Symphonic and Concert bands, led a student bell choir, and collaborated on several other performance groups in various genres, including an American Sign Language (ASL) performance group. 

My journey towards music education as a career began in the 5th grade with my own elementary school experience in Fairfax County. This experience with strong, passionate teachers led me to realize that teaching music was a profession that I could strive to achieve for myself. My early endeavors involved me helping others learn music in many ways, including providing individual instrumental lessons, helping peers in classes, encouraging friends to learn music, or just imparting my knowledge to anyone I met.  I have lived by the idea of “How is this going to help me become a better educator?” This drive has propelled me to seek out different styles of music, performance philosophies, instruments, and the mindset to investigate any situation to find what skill is being taught to help grow myself into an effective teacher.

I have used my passion to promote music learning in various settings since graduation, including working in a pre-school music and movement program, a children and secondary school church music program, as well as teaching private lessons (clarinet, flute, saxophone, oboe, and bassoon) to children and adults. I also delight in finding new and interesting ways to engage those around me in music learning through personalized goals and assorted opportunities to be creative and shine.

My music education philosophy is to grow students into well-rounded musicians/people by learning about music as a language capable of transcending all boundaries and limitations. I emphasize a curriculum that engages students in learning to read, write, listen, and speak the language of music, while also gaining an understanding about important music figures, genres, and structure (or theory). It is my goal for my students to learn to apply their music knowledge to express themselves and connect to the world around them, in whatever manor best suits them.