As our year end fast approached, we decided that we did not want to cancel yet another milestone celebration for our students. The challenge, then, was to recreate the usual experience in a virtual format.
Our year-end celebration is more than just a simple recital. Our students, no matter what they are studying, open the event as a choir. After that, they have, of course, their solo performances, but these are interspersed with rhythm ensembles and other musical activities. Half way through the event, for the benefit of our youngest students, we have a custom choreographed “wiggle break”, which features compositions from our electronic music production courses. At the end of the student performances, we bring in world-class performers, not only to entertain them as a reward for working hard all year, but also to introduce them to instruments that they may not have had a chance to see up close before, and to show them what they can strive for. Our recitals are family-oriented events, and our students are allowed to invite as many guests as they like.
How, then, could we reproduce this virtually and give them a similar experience?
We decided to break the event into two separate parts. The best format for the solo performances, we thought would be a Zoom meeting. The remainder of the activities posed a bit more of a challenge. We needed a sing along, some performances, and some rhythm activities. We put together a booklet of “instruments you can make with things you have at home” and sent that out to all of our families. Some of our teachers agreed to be our “guest performers” and one of our staff is professional DJ. We set up a live stream from our recording studio and had a sing along, play along, and dance party to finish off our afternoon.
One of the most important questions when we were planning our event was whether or not to invite guests. We think every student deserves a large cheering section, so we decided that, with careful planning, we could manage the security issues, and we opened up our event to invited guests. That’s when the magic happened!! The most wonderful thing about virtual events is that there are truly no boundaries. We hosted 152 guests from 19 different countries on every continent around the globe. We were so pleased to be able to include friends and family who had never had a chance to see our students perform, or to join in on any of their celebrations. What an amazing experience to have the world come to our little school!