With cancelled recitals, lost rehearsal time and online lessons, the coronavirus hasn’t been easy on Jacobs students. The Jacobs School of Music has more than 6500 students who perform in more than a thousand recitals every year. Hundreds were cancelled.

“The biggest thing I’m learning is just how blessed I was to be at the school of music where you have so many experiences available and glean so much from your professors,” ballet major Claudia Rhett said.

Ballet majors, for example, normally rehearse together for up to six hours every day. They also take classes like piano, anatomy and ballet history. Because of the coronavirus, their classes now meet online, and they dance together on Zoom every day.  Ballet students normally hold onto a barre for the first portion of their classes and dance on vinyl floors. Now, they hold chairs and couches and dance on carpet, hard wood and tile. “We really have to be careful with ourselves and also just use our technique well so we don’t get injured during this time,” Rhett said.

Rhett and her fellow ballet majors were supposed to be performing in the now canceled ballet, Cinderella, by Sergei Prokofiev at the Musical Arts Center this month. The school also canceled instrumental and vocal majors’ performances. Most students must perform a final recital to fulfill their degree requirements. Those recitals normally happen in the spring semester.

 

Senior Caleb Posey, a percussion student, couldn’t perform his last recital in March. He plans to study music therapy at the University of Kentucky in the fall. He said he’s disappointed about not being able to perform what may be his last solo recital. The school also requires students to perform in ensembles every semester, and there’s no true online replacement for the experience. “It’s definitely really hard to find the motivation lately, just not having anybody to play with,” Posey said. Like many Jacobs students, Posey normally practices on school-owned instruments too large to travel with. “I have one instrument I can practice on, but it’s in the living room, and it feels like the whole family’s listening in the whole time,” Posey said.

The school is aware of students’ added stress, though. They offer online career advising appointments and workshops. The school of music also has a CAPS counselor in residence. Students can still meet with him through Zoom. “With our assignments, our teachers have been asking us “how are you doing,” “what are you struggling with,” … and everyone has been super open about how they’re processing things, which is amazing,” Rhett said.

 

 

 

Even though they miss the musicians and dancers they rehearse with every day, the students are still motivated by their peers.“On days where I feel like I don’t want to get out of bed…I’m reminded that I get to see the people that I want to see on Zoom,” Rhett said. Rhett said she hopes the coronavirus’s effects foster greater appreciation and support for the arts. “I’m hoping that people will realize that what’s getting them through this pandemic are puzzles, books, music and videos,” Rhett said.