Student musicians learn how to make holiday music together while they are apart

Putting together one of those videos where musicians look like they’re playing together even though they’ve all recorded their parts separately in their own homes is a complex affair.

That’s true for professional musicians and even more so for students, but the young musicians of Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia — in grades 4-12 — have done it with not one piece but a half-dozen for their first virtual concert, streaming online at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 13, and available for viewing thereafter.

Among the works on the program are two holiday favorites, “Away in a Manger” and “For Unto Us a Child Is Born” from Handel’s “Messiah.” The latter is as close as SOGO will get this year to its traditional “Messiah” Sing-Along, though the group will release a video of the 2019 event at 3 p.m. Dec. 20.

When asked how difficult it was to pull together the virtual concert, given that the final product was mixed and mastered by a professional recording engineer, Greg Allison of SOGO laughed. “It was still a lot of work,” he told The Olympian.

But the results, he said, exceeded his expectations.

“When you watch the virtual orchestra videos of all the musicians pouring out their hearts through the music without a connection (apart from a recording with a click track), there is an unexplainable warmth that overwhelms you,” he wrote in the group’s newsletter. “We are apart but together.”

Because rehearsals have been happening online, the current lineup of 125 student musicians, divided into four groups based on age, experience and ability, includes members from well beyond Thurston County.

“We have a French horn player from Tampa, Florida,” said Allison, who is the group’s artistic director and conducts the Brass Choir and the Academy Orchestra. “We have a flute player from Indiana and a cello player from Tennessee. We have a clarinetist from Bainbridge Island and a violinist from Vancouver, Washington. It doesn’t matter where you are.”

The member from Florida joined the group after SOGO collaborated with the Tampa Metropolitan Youth Orchestra to figure out some of the ways to take its program virtual.

The orchestras prepared and recorded music over eight weeks, attending weekly rehearsals on Zoom and practicing on their own. The two more advanced orchestras — the Brass Choir and the Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Cameron May — each did two pieces, while the younger orchestras did one each.

“There are so many facets to getting a good recording,” Allison said. “Some of it has to do with equipment. Our guidelines for recording are a full page. Then we review their videos and give feedback. It’s a multi-step process.

“We’ve seen the students step up to the plate big time,” he added.

Since delays on Zoom create a cacophony of sound when musicians try to play together, the rehearsal process required some creativity. A teaching artist would play with a small group of students in a breakout room, with the young musicians, microphones muted, following along at home. Later in the process, each student would take a turn being the leader.

That hasn’t been the only challenge of online learning, Allison said.

“It seems like about 25 minutes is as long as you can do something online, and then you should do something else,” he said. “So we have three 25-minute segments and two five-minute transitions or breaks.

One segment would be devoted to rehearsal, he said, while others would include music theory, music history and a bit of social interaction, which wouldn’t be part of in-person rehearsals but proved invaluable in keeping musicians engaged online.

An advantage of being online has been that the students had opportunities to take master classes with far-flung musicians, including former SOGO member Aaron Wilson, now a trombone professor at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada. Students from the Tampa orchestra attended the master classes, too.

“We were able to do some really cool things,” Allison said. “You can’t do what you normally would do, so you figure out ways to do what you can do and do it better.”

SOGO Virtual Concert

• What: Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia is taking its annual holiday concert online with a series of recorded pieces assembled from recordings the students made in their homes.
• When: 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 13, followed by a Zoom reception; concert will remain online for later viewing.
• Where: Online from SOGO’s website
• Tickets: Free, with donations appreciated
• “Messiah” Sing-Along: The orchestra will debut a video of its 2019 sing-along at 3 p.m. Dec. 20 so fans of the tradition can sing along at home.
• For young musicians: Students interested in joining SOGO are invited to attend a free rehearsal Jan. 10. Advance registration is necessary.

This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 5:45 AM.