Miami Valley Communications Council filmmaker Jim Berecek has received a national Hometown Video Award for his music documentary, A Season with the DPYO. The Hometown Awards are a national video competition held by the Alliance for Community Media (ACM) that recognize community media and local cable programs that are first distributed on Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) access cable television channels.

Jim Berecek received the Honorable Mention for the documentary A Season with the DPYO  in the documentary profile (non-professional) category. A Season with the DPYO  follows the over 100-member Dayton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (made up of performers from over thirty school districts in the greater Dayton area), starting with its first practice in September 2007 through their final concert in May of 2008. Clips from live concerts along with behind-the-scenes footage from the orchestra’s annual winter camp and interviews of current and past members and staff of the DPYO make up this hour and twenty-minute documentary. A Season with the DPYO  can be viewed online at the MVCC website here.

 “DPYO is a youth orchestra that is made up of students from the greater Miami Valley, and what better place to showcase them then on a local television channel like MVCC has to offer,” said Jim Berecek. “MVCC has always been supportive of projects that not only deal with subject matter in their member cities but also with the greater Miami Valley area and MVCC is a great way for local producers to bring their works to the public.” 

This is Jim Berecek’s fourth straight year as a television award winner; he also received the ACM regional Philo T. Farnsworth award in 2009 for A Season with the DPYO, and was recognized in 2008 as a first place recipient for the concert Dayton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and in 2007 where his production Centerville Schools Orchestra 2006-2007 Year End Review  won for best educational program.

The Alliance for Community Media is a nonprofit, national organization founded in 1976 and currently representing over 3,000 Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) access organizations and community media centers throughout the country. It also represents the interests of millions of people who, through their local religious, community and charitable groups, use PEG access to communicate with their memberships and the community as a whole. The Hometown Awards are local cable’s largest video awards.