Working in concert
Young pianists perform for seniors virtually
Every year, piano teacher Corey Francis and his students do a series of recitals for the residents of personal care homes — until COVID-19 and its devastating effect on care homes put the live recitals on hold.
Francis and his students didn't let that stop them. They started Sharing is Caring, a virtual intergenerational, community outreach program designed to reach as many as 10,000 elders living in personal care homes across Manitoba to help lift the residents' spirits through the power of music.
“I knew that my students and their parents were missing (the recitals) as much as the seniors must be,” said Francis, whose Piano Expressions with Corey has more than 65 students aged five and up. “But we still kept up with all of our traditions with how many recitals we did every year, which was usually five or six in our studio. All of these videos were ready to go and it was a wonderful way for us to share it with the seniors. We thought, `It's just sitting there, why don't we put these together and send out some emails to local care homes,' and it just grew from there.
“It's basically getting a second use out of our recitals, just to give some purpose for that music and that hard work that the students did.”
Running about 30 minutes each, the virtual recitals were intended to run until June. Including their St. Patrick's Day recital videos, they have officially organized and uploaded a recital for each month of 2021, with more than 25 student performances ready to watch in each month's YouTube and Google Drive playlist.
Students and their families helped to collect just over 300 student performances, with about 500 piano pieces in total.
“Words cannot express how grateful I am for everyone coming together to make this possible, with a large portion of the videos having been taken from home during online lessons,” said Francis. “It means a lot to me to have such caring families in our studio.”