Dear Upper School Band and Chorus Students and Parents,
I hope this letter finds you well and that you are excited about the upcoming school year.
Obviously 2020 has presented us with many challenges, and the Performing Arts has been especially difficult. Since the pandemic began I have been carefully monitoring data and guidelines throughout the Philadelphia region and nationally. With social distancing, masking requirements, and hygiene standards, our activity has been met with challenges, including the following:
- Philadelphia Department of Health Guidelines suspending wind and choral music:
Suspend choir or singing in music classes/theater; limit instrumental lessons to percussion and strings to prevent Covid-19 spread through respiratory droplets. - The difficulty to establish a safe and orderly environment (social distancing) for the large number of students who participate in band and chorus in Block 2 in the spaces available.
- Continued uncertainty of the spread of Covid-19 in respect to wind instruments and choral music;
- Group size restrictions in the City or Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania.
Due to the above reasons, we have decided between Mr. Fitzmartin and myself that we should suspend the Block 2 full ensemble aspect of Band and Chorus at Penn Charter for the 2020-2021 school year. We will create NEW meeting times that will be scheduled either before or after school, or during student free blocks in the academic day.
With the assistance of Travis Larrabee, David Brightbill and Deb Foley, we determined that the best option was to create these new meeting times for Band and Chorus that will allow students to develop as individual musicians in regards to playing excellence and knowledge of musical techniques and skills. The meeting times are not currently assigned; we are working on these assignments. Band and Chorus will be a graded combination of asynchronous work and synchronous lessons for wind instruments and choral music.
This plan will strengthen the Band and Choral program in the future, and as conditions improve, we will hopefully begin to be permitted small groups in person with proper health mitigation protocols for student safety.
In summary, Band and Chorus in the Upper School at Penn Charter still exists and students will still receive credit and a grade for participation in the ensemble. As with many other aspects of our program this year, it will just look a little different than the norm! We value the commitment that all of you have made to the arts and we will continue to offer students a quality musical experience even though we are not performing in the Kurtz Center. Please look for more details in the weeks ahead.
If you have any questions please feel free to email me at bford@penncharter.com. I am also happy to schedule Google Meet sessions with any students or families with concerns.
Take care and stay safe.
Sincerely,
Brad Ford, Performing Art Department Chair