In the midst of the uncertain times surrounding COVID-19, teachers and students alike have been working together to gain some sense of normalcy. While one may not expect for certain classes to be capable of going online, the TCHS Choir program has done exactly that with a stunning virtual choir.
In addition to doing video chat sight-reading to keep musical skills fresh in its members, Choir Director Adrian Kirtley has also been hard at work in creating collaborative choral pieces — all while every student remains at home.
“This is the first time we’ve ever done something like this, the kids literally learned a new song from home,” Kirtley said.
Creating the finished product was a lengthy task. After sending students their learning tracks and pronunciation tutorials (as the first piece was in German), each student sent in tracks of them singing their respective parts to Mr. Kirtley. From there, every single recording sent in was lined up with the other voice parts and accompaniment in music software, GarageBand; resulting in unexpected yet overwhelming success.
Click the audio file below to listen to the first virtual choir piece.
For their second piece, Kirtley and crew lined up the videos of all the choir students singing their parts to create a visual version of the virtual choir performing “You Are Mine” by Dr. Chris Aspaas Watch that piece below:
Although this is an unstable time for many, at the very least, students can take comfort in knowing that the Fine Arts are finding new ways to carry a tune across the social distance.
