Arianne Abela was directing a choral rehearsal in March 2020 when she opened her email and saw that Amherst would send students home and move classes online. She said a heavyhearted goodbye in particular to the seniors; it would be the last time she’d see them in person for the foreseeable future.
“I was grateful that I could say goodbye and sing ‘Three Gifts’ one last time before everyone left,” says Abela, director of Amherst’s choral program.
As the pandemic stretched into summer, and then fall, and then spring, music programs around the world had to figure out what to do with their performance seasons. The Amherst music department puts on around 60 concerts per year, a mix of student and professional groups. With the pandemic, a few of those concerts were
canceled. Most pivoted to a virtual format.
Mark Swanson and his Symphony Orchestra students recorded Beethoven under a tent.
Amid myriad challenges, the department kept the College’s musical character alive through a rich series of rehearsals and virtual concerts that pushed the limits of what anyone imagined possible a year ago.
Student musicians played masked and distanced during a Jazz Ensemble concert streamed live from Buckley Recital Hall. Professionals joined livestreams of their pre-taped performances to answer questions from the local community. Students wrote original songs and music videos, including “A Quarantine Composition,” which Eunice Daudu ’21 introduced in a Facebook Live broadcast of the April 2021 Spring Concert.
That song, which she wrote with Hildi Gabel ’21, Eva Nelson ’22 and Lindsay Yue ’21, explores their quarantine hobbies. “Some things you will hear will be us frolicking through the desert, baking sourdough bread, teaching our cats to [go on] walks, taking pictures of our cute dogs in fancy outfits and playing some fun video games,” Daudu ’21 says in the video.
“It’s pure willpower: people really wanted to keep making music. They just would not be stopped,” says Alisa Pearson, Amherst’s manager of concert programming, production and publicity. For her, the past year offered a chance to rethink how the department has always done things—and to increasingly prioritize inclusion.
“It’s been really interesting to think about ways in which privilege should become service,” Pearson explains, “and the ways in which to work to get access.” The department is now focused, for example, on bringing more BIPOC professional musicians to Buckley next year. It has also shifted to make all concerts free of charge.
While orchestra director Mark Swanson was planning the virtual Black Music Matters concert that students performed this spring, he struggled to find scores by Black composers in the Five College library system. He and music librarian Ann Maggs are now working to obtain more.
The pandemic-necessitated virtual presence opened up Amherst concerts to more people, and that led the department to consider ongoing issues of accessibility. “We now have the technology in place to share our music with family and friends across the world,” Abela says. “That is something that is absolutely wonderful and will carry us forward in the future.”
Roughly 30 of her choral students attended Amherst in person this year, out of the usual 70. Rehearsals took place in person with masks and distance (and, in the fall, face shields). “It sounds silly, but I missed singing a lot,” recalls Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22. “Even though we have to wear masks, and even though the wind makes it hard to hold our music, rehearsing in person made everything worth it.” He is a baritone, but because the on-campus chorus was so small this year, he sang with the altos and sopranos. That led him to meet new people and make new connections.
Meanwhile, Glee Club president Patrick Spoor ’23 spent the year with his family in Georgia. Technical limitations often kept him from singing remotely with his Amherst friends, but when he was able to do so, it was the highlight of his year. “Camaraderie,” he said this spring, “is what I’ve been missing the most.”
Photograph by Hantong Wu ’23