Virtual concerts, outdoor lessons: State College music school gets creative to keep teaching

In the past, going to a music recital meant sitting in an audience of parents and listening to children plunk out “Ave Maria” on a spotlit stage.

In the era of COVID-19, however, recitals look a little different — in December, some students at The Music Academy were each given a Christmas carol and told to arrange it for their instrument. Then, their recorded performances were compiled in a virtual recital.

The Music Academy had to get creative to keep things running, according to Joanne Rutkowski — the president of the State College organization’s board and a professor emerita of music education at Penn State — using a combination of virtual privates, Zoom recitals and outdoor lessons.

Instruction is offered in a wide variety of instruments, for musicians of all ages and skill levels. Jennene Lundy, the director of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, said students have spanned age 0 all the way up to 95.

There are early childhood classes, as well as traditional or “Suzuki Method” lessons — based on an approach by Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki — for older students. Instructors teach voice, piano, guitar, string, brass, wind and percussion lessons, for instruments ranging from the electric bass to the recorder.

In March, all in-person lessons were moved online. Rutkowski said the switch was especially difficult for younger students — while some early childhood lessons were held outside over the summer to maintain the in-person experience, other beginner musicians relegated to Zoom had to learn brand-new skills through their screens.

“It’s harder for younger kids because you don’t have somebody right there, looking at how you’re holding the instrument directly,” Rutkowski said. “And plus, they’re on Zoom with school and everything, so there is that Zoom fatigue.”

The academy runs two semesters during the year, in the fall and spring, in addition to a summer session. Currently, the school utilizes a mix of in-person and online lessons, depending on the teachers’ and families’ preferences and comfort levels, the instrument type (voice and wind instrument lessons don’t allow for mask-wearing) and Centre County’s positive coronavirus case rate.

But while enrollments were up through the summer, Rutkowski said, numbers dropped sharply by the fall.

“I think some of that is families are just so stressed and Zoomed out, and there’s like, ‘We can’t do one more thing,’ ” Rutkowski said. “Parents used to come and bring their students to lessons and they’d sit in our lobby, and work and read. We stopped all that with our protocols.”

Now, the academy is in the middle of its spring 2021 semester. Rutkowski expects that some lessons can occur outside as soon as weather conditions allow for it.

Both the Suzuki and traditional students will hold virtual concerts in February, by means of splicing together student-recorded performances and posting the finished product to a private YouTube channel.

Lundy said the concerts allow students to continue musical instruction in as normal a fashion as possible.

“We’re making paths, we’re finding new ways of doing things,” Lundy said. “It’s been a time to get very creative in what you do so that you can keep doing it as well as possible, and I commend the students and the teachers for being able to do that.”

Lundy said the program, which has been operating in the Centre County region for more than 55 years, is “resilient.”

“The school has probably weathered many challenges in its time with the support of the community ... but it’s quite a marker that we’ve been around for well over 50 years,” Lundy said. “We’re finding our way.”