The Music Department has had a strange year, and now that the school year is wrapping up, students will be performing all of their hard work. However, due to Covid-19, performances will be in a different form, such as virtual or recording.

The Music Department is run by head choir director Mr. Mayes and assistant director Scott Jones. The Jonathan Alder High School Show Choir performed March 19th and 20th in “The Weather Project”, an in person and virtual hour and a half show.

“So [the school is] scheduling a virtual concert for all the high school choirs and the junior high concerts for May,” Mayes says. “We haven’t scheduled [a specific date] yet, but it’s gonna be available on YouTube. It won’t be in front of a live audience.“

My Fair Lady, the music programs musical this year, is planned to be an in-person event, “Every single seat is 6 feet apart, everyone is told ‘if you’re sick, you can’t come out,’ everyone has to wear masks, or you’re shown the door. Those restrictions are still in place.”

Rehearsals for the musical have been different as well, “The musical is kind of in the music program, so we all follow the same guidelines. It’s pretty consistent,” Mayes says. “We have to air out rooms every once in a while, we can’t sing for too long. It’s all that stuff.”

The band section, run by director Mr. Hennig, consists of bands from all Jonathan Alder schools. Jonathan Alder High School’s band starts as one marching band during the fall, and then two separate indoor bands for the remaining school year. The two bands, Wind Symphony and Symphonic, have a concert tentatively scheduled for April 29th.

The bands will likely perform virtual, “With the number of students in each ensemble, it is unlikely that we will be able to have a live audience present due to the limitations of seating in the main gymnasium,” Hennig says.  

In order for either bands to play, they must be at a minimum of six feet apart when playing/rehearsing. Due to the amount of band students, the two bands must rehearse at separate times, as the entire gym is taken up by one band.

“This means that, like Band class, we will need to use the entire floor of the gym to perform which does not leave space for an audience,” Hennig says.

Due to the lack of space, virtually viewing the band(s) is the most logical choice. For those wishing to see the students perform, they will still be able to see the concert, even if in a less than traditional form.

“My thought currently is to either record or do a live stream of our performance so that all friends and family of our students will be able to see what we have done [during] such a unique time,” Hennig says.

Despite the uncertainty of these times, Hennig is determined to make a concert happen some way or another: “I am still in the process of working out the logistics of how to make this happen but these are the tentative ideas I have so far.”

Both band and choir students should be recognized for their effort into the arts during these times. Mr. Hennig says that he is “tremendously proud of all of our Band students in every grade level and think we will all want to look back on what we did during this time just to see what we were able to overcome.“