Town Hall 10/27/2020: Summary & Recording
Dear PEBCC Families,
We want to thank all of those who were able to attend our Town Hall! It was a pleasure to hear from our community and share the amazing strides our singers have made in virtual singing, as well as the changes we have implemented to complement virtual learning styles.
Please click here to see the recording of the Town Hall.
Introductions & Fall Overview
We opened the Town Hall with an introduction to our new Executive Director, Keri Butkevich, who shared more about her experience and background as an arts executive and choral educator. Then Lillian Archer, PEBCC Fund Development Consultant, shared more information about the November 14 Benefit Concert and Auction, including a brief audio teaser from Aires de Quisqueya, performed by Ensemble for this year’s event. You can purchase your ticket by clicking here.
Artistic Director Eric Tuan shared a mid-semester update on the season for the Performing Department:
We are currently starting to record for the Candlelight concert and the Benefit Concert. Recording is a unique skill for students to learn in addition to musical education, in the midst of the pandemic. Our main change has been offering individual voice lessons and coaching sessions and are hoping to increase these activities for Concert Choir. We were able to hire more vocal faculty, thanks to an anonymous donation, making these individual lessons possible for all of our choirs. Ensemble has been rehearsing repertoire, specifically medieval music, for the collaborations coming up with choirs in Finland and the UK. Ecco is premiering a new piece in regards to climate activism and has an online retreat coming up with Stanford University Chamber Chorale.
We are now introducing SoundTrap with our PD groups, which is a new technology that allows us to gather sound in an easier way. Students are able to easily record their part, hear each other as an ensemble, and collaborate. You can think of it like a musical Google Doc! Hearing the recording is very valuable because it allows the teacher to understand what is going on vocally and share that feedback with singers.
Naomi Braun, Kinder and Training Department Director, shared her mid-semester update for the Training and Kinder Department:
TD has also ramped up the individual attention like PD. Prior to Zoom Choir, children would have one voice lesson during the whole semester; now we are able to offer about one voice lesson per child per week. We are also working in smaller groups with up to five faculty and staff for 12-15 singers, which has been wonderful. During the second hour we have dedicated theory time in small groups and the children are able to get more individualized attention.
Eric discussed feedback received from parents during the office hours and rehearsal surveys. Much of the feedback was positive, and we heard many students enjoy the individual voice lessons and have an easier time adjusting to the new format of recording. What also came up was that parents are hoping for more communication during the semester because goals are less clear now that we are all virtual. We have sent or will be sending (depending on your choir) mid-semester reports from the conductors. Feel free to contact your conductors should you have questions. We also held office hours last week which allowed parents to hear more about their child’s experience in rehearsal.
Going Forward
We are committed to staying virtual until the end of this semester, which ends at the end of January. Conditions will change and we are trying to envision the spring semester. (Please note that all the information we are sharing below is preliminary. We do not have any set plans for doing any in-person activities at this time. But we do like to think ahead, communicate with our community about possibilities, and hear your feedback.)
Tour Planning: Unfortunately, we will not be able to offer the originally planned Ensemble tour to Argentina or Concert Choir tour to the Kathaumixw festival in British Columbia, due to COVID-19’s impact on our own community and on our original partners abroad. We have created alternative touring plans that decrease in ambition and are adjustable based on the current data and guidelines. Among the options currently available are a domestic tour; a California bus tour; an end of year retreat at Walker Creek; and an outdoor concert. We will keep you posted as the situation continues to evolve, on which of the options we see as the most feasible. If you have any questions about tour payments, please call Martin Hodge in the office at 510 547 4441, extension 5.
COVID-19 Advisory Committee: We are continuing to meet regularly with our COVID-19 Advisory Committee, who share their expertise and best practices for reopening plans. Greg Kurio, MD, and Ben Meisel, MD are part of the committee and shared information from the meetings. Given the third wave that is happening nationwide, we haven't found a reasonable way to get the kids back together for singing again. The main challenge is that bringing our singers together would mix the strict cohorts that are required for school re-opening, which makes receiving approval for our plans from county public health officials unlikely. The COVID-19 Advisory Committee believes we will be considerably slower in being able to go to back in-person meetings compared to the school systems. There will be a lag of a few months after schools are able to reopen before mixed-cohort activities are permitted.
Reopening Plans: Eric shared more about our ideas for reopening plans based on the COVID-19 Advisory Committee meetings. We developed three preliminary options for the next semester, or for whenever conditions allow us to regather, that we are considering at this time.
The first option is that we would be able to offer limited, phased-in in-person regathering. We are currently writing and developing a plan, so that we could be ready to present it to public health officials and the community when the time comes and officials are easing up on restrictions. The elements of the first plan would include multiple layers of symptoms screening; masking, social distancing, and appropriate ventilation in an outdoor or indoor space; and limits to the number of students at rehearsals. Livestreams of the rehearsals would also be offered for singers who do not feel comfortable attending.
The second option is the Virtual Studio technology, which is a plug and play, low-latency technology that is currently being used by two youth choirs on the peninsula. It is a program that allows students to sing together and to hear each other while singing. This does not happen on Zoom. We have been looking into it, and there are formidable obstacles. It requires a wired internet connection, meaning WIFI is not enough and instead students have to be able to plug into the router. We are not sure how many families have access to a wired internet connection and how many students would be able to regularly be in the room of the router during rehearsal times. The second obstacle is the cost, which is about $200 per student. Equal access is a concern for us and we will not introduce this if we do not see every student having the abilities outlined above.
The third option is to continue our programs the same way we have been this fall, with continued refinement of discussion.
Group Discussion & Conclusion
After Eric shared these plans, we had the attendees spend time together in breakout rooms to discuss what they had heard and answer some of the following questions:
Introduce yourself to each other, what is your child’s name and which choir are they in?
What is going well? What is not going well?
What is your comfort level for an in-person rehearsal in the spring? Would you be willing to have your child attend socially distant in-person rehearsals should we have state approval, or would you still want to hold off?
Is Virtual Studio of interest to you? Do you have access to a wired internet connection?
Please appoint one person to report back to the main group.
We heard from parents and their various impressions. There were concerns with regard to equal access and safety, while others expressed their wishes for the kids’ ability to be together in some form. We are so thankful for your considerate feedback and thoughts on the topics.
We hope you enjoyed the Town Hall as much as we did and that this summary and the recording will be useful for those who were not able to attend.
Best wishes,
The Choir Office