Celebrating our second decade of bringing great music to schools, nursing homes, and the Montgomery County/Washington, DC community.

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The NIH Community Orchestra is an all-volunteer organization founded by Gary Daum in the fall of 1996 for the purpose of bringing together the musical talent of NIH and the surrounding community. Since then, its concert repertoire has spanned the music of six centuries and is becoming known among the arts community of Montgomery County. The group is a regular contributor to the summer outdoor concert series in Gaithersburg and small chamber groups perform at local libraries, nursing homes, schools and other concert venues. In the spring of 2003, our smaller ensemble, the NIH Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jesse Parker, made its debut concerts at Saint Mark Presbyterian and at Strathmore Hall mansion with a program of the music of Mozart and Beethoven. Many of the orchestra's rehearsals are open reading sessions where the group spends an evening playing through standard orchestral repertoire in a relaxed environment.

For their outreach activities, the NIHCO has been nominated twice in the past four years for the Acacia Federal Bank's "Nice Guys Awards". Perhaps one of the more remarkable facts about the group is that the NIHCO is an all volunteer organization. This group of talented musicians comes together to make music for the sheer joy of music. Proceeds from the NIHCO concerts benefit charities of NIH, including the Patient Emergency Fund, The Children's Inn, and Camp Funshine.