By Jeanne Wohlgumuth Finding a silver lining in a year that has been riddled with disappointments and life-changing events would seems to be daunting and virtually impossible. However, when given the opportunity to reflect on the past year, I find that there are many silver linings that have emerged from a somewhat horrendous situation. Silver […]
Silver Linings
Silver Linings: Three Snapshots from the Past Year
By Carol Earnhardt Virtual Rehearsals, Concert, and After Party Last August, in 2020, the board members of my community choir, the Heart of Triad Choral Society (Kernersville, North Carolina), looked at me like I was crazy when I told them I wanted to have weekly rehearsals on Zoom and give a live “virtual” concert in […]
Silver Linings: Resilience and New Beginnings
By Marc Taylor This past year has been difficult for most everybody in one way or another. For music teachers it has been quite challenging. For families that have lost loved ones it has been devastating. Personally, I haven’t had a desire to dwell on or rehash the negative aspects of this period of time. […]
Silver Linings: Commitment and Engagement
By David L. Mennicke At Concordia University, St. Paul, we’ve been fortunate to have been able to meet face-to-face, with distancing, masks, and 30-minute rehearsal times. This has led us to working on less literature and more focus on skill-building. Unable to do live concerts, we’ve engaged in sharing recorded videos of our music. The […]
Silver Linings: Giving Grace, Growing Closer, and Building Trust
By Hilary Morton Everyone has had a hard year. I think choral directors might have had it a bit worse. We will be dealing with the fallout from this pandemic for the next few years at least, rebuilding our programs from the ground up. We haven’t been teaching “choir” as we have known it to […]
Silver Linings: Cross-Country Collaborative Choral Initiatives
By Tracy Wong “Shared joy is a double joy. Shared sorrow is half a sorrow.” This Swedish proverb rings true as we reach the one-year mark of this pandemic and reflect on how COVID-19 continues to impact the global choral community. In Canada, the changing restrictions for this evolving pandemic have prompted choral leaders to […]