Lessons for the future
How have music conservatoires coped with the Covid-19 pandemic and adapted themselves to suit the needs of their students? Clare Stevens takes a look
Music is not a subject that lends itself well to online study. To develop young instrumentalists’ or singers’ technique and musical expression, tutors really need to be in the same rooms as their pupils, hearing the sound they are producing, helping them to make subtle adjustments to their bow hold, embouchure or breathing, perhaps demonstrating precise details of articulation. Making music together in orchestral ensembles, choirs or operatic performances is an essential part of the student experience.
So the Covid-19 pandemic has hit conservatoires hard. By the time this issue of BBC Music Magazine is on the shelves, those in the UK will be welcoming their second cohort of students to a new academic year in which every aspect of college life has had to be reinvented.
Some have chosen to present themselves to prospective students as though nothing had changed; the front pages of their websites are full of smiling faces and a virtual visitor has to put a few key words into the search boxes to reveal the 15-page risk assessments that have occupied many hours of staff time over the past 18 months. Others flag up straight away the impact of the pandemic and what they are doing to get as close as possible to pre-covid normality.
For everyone, normality now means ‘blended learning’: a mix of in-person teaching where possible, and virtual lessons, lectures and seminars. The aim is to offer as much practical activity as possible on college premises, using the internet for more academic teaching. But there have been long periods when full lockdown has meant colleges were completely closed and students had no access to facilities or face-to-face contact with staff or one another at all.
One positive side to all this has been the revelation that online communication offers opportunities that were hitherto under-exploited: students can stay in touch with teachers who may be doing a concert tour on the other side of the world, or may have a one-to-one tutorial with a specialist based in another country. Video auditions are now the default option, where previously colleges preferred to meet candidates in person. But it has been a steep learning curve for everyone.
‘If we had taken a strategic decision that we were going to have a bigger online presence and digital delivery, we would have had pilot projects for years,’ says Tim Rhys-evans, director of music at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. ‘Instead, we had to do it in 48 hours when the pandemic struck. The first summer break gave us time to upskill ourselves and upgrade the tech in the college, which was a challenge in itself financially, at a time when we wouldn’t have chosen to increase our investment in those areas; but it was very important to do so and will pay off in the future.’
Students, too, have had to equip themselves to work from home when necessary, ensuring that their phones and laptops are able to receive and send high-quality videos and share large files. Limited broadband capacity has been a challenge for many, often if they are living in crowded shared accommodation or at home with their families in remote areas with poor reception.
In response to this unprecedented situation, conservatoires have done their best to extend existing support for students in need. London’s
Due to Covid-19, every aspect of college life has been reinvented
Royal College of Music, for example, launched a Covid-19 hardship fund in April 2020 to raise funds for students worst affected by the pandemic, acknowledging that many young musicians had lost the performing engagements, teaching or work in other sectors such as hospitality that they rely on to pay their tuition fees and cover their living costs. Supporters of the college gave generously to the appeal, raising £450,000 within the first few months of the pandemic.
Institutions have adapted their buildings where possible to create safe environments for their staff, students and ancillary workers when attendance in person is permitted – installing perspex screens and hand sanitising stations, enhancing cleaning rotas, establishing one-way systems, creating space around furniture in offices and classrooms and so on.
Protocols have been drawn up regarding the wearing of face masks and every other aspect of daily life – including, of course, Covid testing and self-isolating. Students and staff at the Royal Academy of Music, London (RAM), for example, must be tested before returning to college after a break and are encouraged to have repeat tests twice a week; they are eligible to attend the University of London Asymptomatic Testing Site at Student Central, Bloomsbury.
The aspiration, according to RAM principal Jonathan
Freeman-attwood, is to enable students to continue to experience a full range of lessons, classes and ensemble activities, however long the pandemic lasts, and to ensure that they all receive a world-class musical training with performance at its heart. A universal strategy has been to close college premises to visitors so that the community can feel safe. In recent years conservatoires have increasingly marketed themselves as commercial venues with professional box office systems, but Covid-era student performances are taking place in empty auditoriums or to small, distanced audiences of fellow students and staff, often livestreamed or recorded for viewing on Youtube. Anne-marie Federle, who was just completing her first year studying French horn at the RAM when she took part in the final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition 2021 in St David’s Hall, Cardiff, commented that she was by then quite used to playing without a visible audience, so this aspect of the competition experience was not especially daunting.
One of the biggest losses for instrumental students has been the experience of large-scale symphonic orchestral playing but some have benefited from playing in smaller ensembles and chamber groups where they can take more responsibility for their part than they do in the back desks of a large violin or cello
section. Conservatoire staff have worked hard to devise alternative opportunities for them, such as playing for opera scenes that would normally be accompanied by a staff pianist.
Reflecting on her disrupted second and third years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, mezzo-soprano Rachel Roper says they have been pretty tough: ‘I’m grateful to Guildhall for all the efforts they put into keeping as many of the “normal” activities as possible, even putting on extra Zoom talks so that we were occupied during lockdown; and my teacher John Evans has been very supportive and helpful throughout the pandemic, offering to record backing tracks for me to practise with outside teaching hours and frequently checking in about my mental health. But I feel we’ve lost the last two years of our degree.’
Battles with technology and the constant switches back and forth from one set of regulations to another have been stressful for everyone, and the end of her course was particularly difficult, with performances that should have happened earlier in the year crammed into the last term, alongside final exams.
There have been positives, however. ‘Online coaching can be useful for very detailed work, as you lose the overall beauty of the sound and any mistakes or imperfections stand out much more than they would in a rehearsal room,’ says Roper. ‘I think for singers in particular it has allowed us to examine the way we prepare a score and the text in even more clarity, because performing the work is out of the question. I also think that reduced class sizes and more one-to-one time has been hugely beneficial for those who struggle in larger groups. I know that I improved enormously in the first lockdown because I wasn’t worrying about performing in front of peers!’
In the US, meanwhile, things have moved along with a similar sense of inventiveness and urgency. Over the course of the last academic year, New York’s Juilliard School introduced comprehensive health screenings, contact tracing and free, on-site weekly Covid testing for all students, faculty and staff entering the building. Great strides were also made in the school’s technological resources too, investing in its capability to livestream events and create performance opportunities, as well as enhance remote learning. By the of spring 2021, 83 per cent of Juilliard students were on campus, taking part in as many in-person activities as possible, balanced carefully with safety considerations. And because of the strict new safety protocols, Juilliard students were able to participate in 340 public performances from February 2021 through the end of the school year in June, including
275 livestreamed recitals.
On both sides of the Atlantic, conservatoires now have vast online portfolios of student performances and films to promote themselves to potential students; Trinity Laban’s includes ‘Cup of tea with…’, a series of informal chats with members of staff. The pandemic did not stop the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire from launching its parent university’s Centre for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts last July with a week of online performances by conservatoire students, including new works written to tie in with the centre’s priorities. Even the Royal Northern College of Music, where activities have been more limited than elsewhere because of long lockdowns in the Greater Manchester area, managed to bring students and staff together to perform for one another in Reunite at the RNCM, a two-week celebration of the end of the 202021 academic year, with chamber orchestra concerts, acoustic sessions, opera scenes and even a staff/student sports day.
Some creative work has been directly inspired by the circumstances, such as What if I told you, a song by Harry Gascoigne, a second-year musical theatre student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, written in response to the challenges facing the theatre sector. At the suggestion of his tutor Emily Reutlinger, he video-recorded the song with his year group and it was shared on social media in May 2021. ‘Harry has written a beautiful and meaningful song that captures the emotion of the last year for performing artists,’ says Reutlinger. ‘[It] is a rallying cry to the industry, a reminder that the arts will survive to see us through the darkest of times, and that these vibrant young artists are still here, still creating and producing work, and are ready to make their mark on the world.’
The arts will survive to see us through the darkest of times