Smooth Sailing
By Daniel Wu, Los Altos, California, U.S.
When the announcement boomed over the school loudspeaker that school would be moved online, everybody froze. Not long after, the questions began: “How will sports be conducted? What happens to the testing protocols? Will I still be able to see my friends?”
While those questions spun through my head, one echoed louder than the rest: “How will the choir sing together?”
I joined the San Francisco Bay Area Ragazzi Young Mens’ Ensemble (YME) in August 2019. No matter how exhausted we might have been, each Wednesday, the 50 member chorus eagerly sang together. Beyond the beautiful music, I loved how supportive our community was. I was the first-year stranger in a tight-knit group of singers, but they welcomed me as if they had known me my entire life, even during the first rehearsal.
Nobody could have predicted the devastating scale of the COVID-19 pandemic. At first, our director asked us to send weekly recordings of our singing. He responded with tremendously helpful feedback. However, the sound of my voice in my small room paled in comparison to what I was used to hearing when we sang as a full choir.
During the fall of 2020, Ragazzi tested and implemented the nation’s first “Virtual Studio,” a device that allowed everybody to sing together in real time, remotely. I promptly became a section leader. While the virtual studio didn’t convey the same rich sound we produced in our rehearsal hall, I was relieved to hear the different timbres of everybody’s voices simultaneously again.
As a section leader, my goal was not only to make sure my section had mastered its part, but to create a welcoming environment. New singers were incredibly shy at first, so I made use of ice-breaker games, Kahoot quizzes, and stimulating conversations to inspire my peers, despite the fact that we were only able to see each other on our respective computer screens.
As our year came to a close, we listened to graduating seniors while they sang a lively sea shanty over the virtual studio for the last time. Smooth sailing!