Virginia Giglio:
CLASS OF 1970
East Atlanta High SchoolClass of 1970
Atlanta, GA
Georgia State UniversityClass of 1974
Atlanta, GA
Boston UniversityClass of 1972
Boston, MA
East Atlanta High SchoolClass of 1971
Atlanta, GA
Gordon Elementary SchoolClass of 1966
Atlanta, GA
Virginia's Story
Life
A published author/recordings producer in Native American ethnomusicology, Giglio now lives in Oklahoma in a house in the country. In 2000 Giglio's company Global Thinking, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in web design and educational publications, launched NATIVECULTURE.COM, a comprehensive portal site for Native American resources on the Internet; the site achieved FORBES Magazine's "Best of the Web" distinction in February 2001. Giglio earned the Ph.D. in Music Ed at the University of Oklahoma where she initiated courses in World Music, Native American Music, and African American Music. As a Visiting Scholar in Ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University, Giglio taught courses and served as archivist consultant at the Wesleyan World Music Archives. She is the author of Southern Cheyenne Women's Songs (University of Oklahoma Press 1994 - with accompanying tape) based on field research with Oklahoma Cheyennes. She recorded and produced the compact disc to accompany her biography of Bertha Little Coyote, Leaving Everything Behind: the Songs and Memories of a Cheyenne Woman (1997). She has received traditional Cheyenne honors and international recognition for her work in Native American Cultural preservation and has taught at Oklahoma, Wesleyan, E. Conn. State, New Haven, and Florida Atlantic Universities. She is a mezzo-soprano and plays flute, recorder, and Native American flute. A former board member of the College Music Society, member of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI) Giglio is still a voting member for the Grammy Awards and the Latin Grammys. Giglio writes for the Kingfisher Times and Free Press in her new "hometown" of Kingfisher OK (pop 5000) and enjoys country life with her husband Neal Dunnigan, an IBM Technology Architect; she has 2 grown sons and 2 grown stepdaughters, one of them a disabled veteran married to a US Army warrant officer.
School
I now know how lucky we were to have the great teachers we had at East Atlanta High.
College
Georgia State University was not my first choice, but happenstance made it my alma mater. I'm glad now that I received such a good education along with fine students whose primary goal was education rather than social life - and the urban university setting was ideal for promoting that goal....Expand for more
I'm glad I had a chance to spend a semester at Boston University, but ran out of money and had to return home. It was my first experience in the north, and it woke up the adventurer in me. I've lived all over the country now, and make my home in Oklahoma, where I finished graduate work in music in 1991. Having lived in New York, Washington State, Connecticut, and South Florida, I'd have to say that Oklahoma is the best place to live -- for me. After my mother was killed in Atlanta, I just haven't quite forgiven the city. No offense to my old friends of course.
Workplace
Everything you study, or experience, or do - it all adds up to who you are and what you do with your life. I don't play the flute very often (SO important for the first 20 years of my life.) However, when I do play, I bring years of focus and discipline together while finding my own melodies and expression. I play for me now - and I find that all the work I put into striving to be "the best flute player in the world" did something for me - it gave me a taste of what it meant to try to be excellent at something. And this has carried over into my life as a mother, as a writer, as a researcher, as a friend, and as a community servant. I'm so grateful to my parents, my teachers, and my friends who went through my flute-playing years with me. Thanks, Mr. Bradley, Mrs. Bradley, Mr. Sedlack, Mr. Altieri, Mr. Demos, Mr. Ernst. Thanks Stan, David, Tommy, Larry, Mike, Marietta, Charles, -- all the All-State and ride-sharing crew. Thanks to all the moms - mine, and Mrs. Nelson, and Mrs. Trammell, and Mrs. Bowman, and Mrs. Grizzle. Thanks to Teddy Mullinax, the first among us to be able to drive to rehearsals across town. Thanks to all the band boosters and chaperones. Thanks to the whole social entity that just doesn't exist anymore - that's a treasured part of the past of the 60s that will never come again, when parents and students and kids worked to make the impossible possible and tear up contests in spite of our miniscule school population. Thanks to our school friends outside of the band, who supported and were proud of the band. Thanks for the sound of rattling medals, and people pointing, and making music that sounded and was so much bigger than we were. Thanks for the precious, precious times - all of you.
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