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Virtual Chorus Rehearsals

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Title (Dublin Core)

Virtual Chorus Rehearsals

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This is a text letter from a chorus instructor explaining the protocol for his choir on navigating Covid-19 as a team.
Will Robertson via googlegroups.com
Thu, Mar 12, 11:28 AM (6 days ago)
to CBH

Well, y'all...it's been quite a year so far!

After talking with Amy and Gayanne, we've decided that it's in our community's best interest to suspend our Monday night in-person chorus rehearsals at CBH for the time being.

This was both a difficult and an easy decision to make, for a few reasons:
1) If it weren't for the recording of the album (more on that below), we would be in a really light time in our schedule right now – maybe meeting every other week, like we did last year.
2) There's a good segment of our chorus that is in the "vulnerable population" demographic. We don't want to put them at risk, and if the chorus tried to meet without those folks, it wouldn't be...us. We are all of us.
3) From a social responsibility perspective, it's feeling clear that this is the right move. Canceling events where there are economic consequences can be a really difficult calculation to make...but for chorus rehearsals, there are no economic consequences. The CBH Chorus feeds our hearts and our souls, but no one will be out of a job if we don't meet for a little while. (...right, Amy? :) ) And it's feeling like the responsible thing to do would be to remove one more space where coronavirus could be transmitted... because it's not an easy decision in other spaces, where canceling may be prudent but economically devastating.

Here are a few additional points of information.

About the album: The good news here is that I actually have a lot to work on even without the chorus meeting. I can record the band, I can process/edit the songs that we've already recorded, etc. It's impossible to say how much our timeline will be impacted by what's going on, but that was already in flux...and seems like a pretty small concern right now anyway.

About this Saturday's bar mitzvah: The bar mitzvah this Saturday will take place. Leadership is discussing what we'll do about music, but the most likely scenario is that I will sing and play guitar solo. Look for an email about that soon...and if you have a personal connection to the family and think you might attend the service, please email me ASAP.

Moving forward, we have been talking about the importance of chorus as a social connection for so many of us (importance that will only increase now) and exploring ways to connect. "Online rehearsals" where we're all singing together wouldn't work well because of the inherent lag of internet connections (bound by the speed of light :) ), but we'll be thinking about other ways to connect - maybe something like Zoom meeting singalongs or a virtual choir project. Look for more information about that coming soon, too, and if you have any ideas, please email Gayanne and/or me.

Let's all stay safe, pray for r'fua shleimah for those who are suffering all over the world, and work to turn this crisis into an opportunity to build strength within - and foster connection to - our human family at CBH, in Atlanta, our nation, and our world.

With love and hope,
Will

--
Will Robertson

Date (Dublin Core)

Creator (Dublin Core)

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Type (Dublin Core)

email

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

Collection (Dublin Core)

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

03/18/2020

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

09/14/2020
11/09/2020
01/26/2021
02/02/2021
08/03/2021

Date Created (Dublin Core)

03/12/2020

Text (Omeka Classic)

Will Robertson via googlegroups.com
Thu, Mar 12, 11:28 AM (6 days ago)
to CBH

Well, y'all...it's been quite a year so far!

After talking with Amy and Gayanne, we've decided that it's in our community's best interest to suspend our Monday night in-person chorus rehearsals at CBH for the time being.

This was both a difficult and an easy decision to make, for a few reasons:
1) If it weren't for the recording of the album (more on that below), we would be in a really light time in our schedule right now – maybe meeting every other week, like we did last year.
2) There's a good segment of our chorus that is in the "vulnerable population" demographic. We don't want to put them at risk, and if the chorus tried to meet without those folks, it wouldn't be...us. We are all of us.
3) From a social responsibility perspective, it's feeling clear that this is the right move. Canceling events where there are economic consequences can be a really difficult calculation to make...but for chorus rehearsals, there are no economic consequences. The CBH Chorus feeds our hearts and our souls, but no one will be out of a job if we don't meet for a little while. (...right, Amy? :) ) And it's feeling like the responsible thing to do would be to remove one more space where coronavirus could be transmitted... because it's not an easy decision in other spaces, where canceling may be prudent but economically devastating.

Here are a few additional points of information.

About the album: The good news here is that I actually have a lot to work on even without the chorus meeting. I can record the band, I can process/edit the songs that we've already recorded, etc. It's impossible to say how much our timeline will be impacted by what's going on, but that was already in flux...and seems like a pretty small concern right now anyway.

About this Saturday's bar mitzvah: The bar mitzvah this Saturday will take place. Leadership is discussing what we'll do about music, but the most likely scenario is that I will sing and play guitar solo. Look for an email about that soon...and if you have a personal connection to the family and think you might attend the service, please email me ASAP.

Moving forward, we have been talking about the importance of chorus as a social connection for so many of us (importance that will only increase now) and exploring ways to connect. "Online rehearsals" where we're all singing together wouldn't work well because of the inherent lag of internet connections (bound by the speed of light :) ), but we'll be thinking about other ways to connect - maybe something like Zoom meeting singalongs or a virtual choir project. Look for more information about that coming soon, too, and if you have any ideas, please email Gayanne and/or me.

Let's all stay safe, pray for r'fua shleimah for those who are suffering all over the world, and work to turn this crisis into an opportunity to build strength within - and foster connection to - our human family at CBH, in Atlanta, our nation, and our world.

With love and hope,
Will

--
Will Robertson

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Google Groups

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148

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