Bernards high school concerts are back after two years of silence. However, some changes were made to adhere to COVID-19 guidelines. Due to COVID-19 and school shutdowns in 2020 and the beginning of 2021, the band was unable to practice in school. Band practices were at home, where students had to teach themselves the music, and concerts had to be recorded to post online. The virtual concerts were the best solution to the situation.
Now that band and choir has been able to return to live performances, the members, as well as the community, is ecstatic to get back to doing what they love most. The first choir concert of the year commenced on Thursday, December 9th with the band concert the following Thursday, December 16th.
“I am very excited for the concert, it’s really great that we got something to work out, especially considering what happened with last year’s concert. Last year worked for the time, however it is not what everyone was used to”, shares Max lenci, choir member and madrigal.
The choir will be performing songs such as Zikir, Silent Night, Refuge, and Deck The Halls. Out of all the songs, Lenci is most excited to sing Zikir.
“I’m excited to perform with the band since I haven’t done a concert since the first half of eighth grade”, shares Max Bozack, clarinetist of 6 years. Max is looking forward to a successful concert and to get to do concerts regularly again. The concert band is playing four songs. African Bell Carol, Blue Ridge Saga, All Is Calm, which is based on Silent Night and Sleigh Ride. Out of these four songs, Max is most excited to play Blue Ridge Saga.
Mr. Trumpy, the band director, is also very excited to be back to performing, “Since it’s been 2 years since our last live performance, I’m especially looking forward to getting back on stage with our band students. Live concerts and performances of all kinds have been slowly coming back and I couldn’t be more excited for our students to experience the joy of making music together on stage!”
Mr. Trumpy cannot wait to hear the band perform in front of a live audience, and is confident that the band will exceed expectations. Mr LaPine, the director of choral music at the high school is also very excited to be back to having in person concerts. However, Mr. LaPine faced some challenges. One major and obvious challenge was singing while wearing a mask.
“Masks don’t necessarily dampen the sound the way you might expect. Instead, it muffles the consonants that the students are singing which makes the words that are being sung harder for the audience to understand.”
The choir has been trying very hard and has figured out ways to make the words more audible and understandable, but there will still be some issues with the audience being able to hear the words clearly.
Another challenge was contact tracing. Mr LaPine had to prepare for the worst. He had to be ready for members to be missing. Luckily, all choir and band members were able to perform in their first concerts of the year, setting the tone for a hopefully successful and long season.
