After more than a year of Zoom concerts and recitals taking the place of public performances in person, Rice University’s Stude Concert Hall once again came alive with the sounds of the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra and long-awaited applause from a live audience this past weekend for its opening night concerts.
New Shepherd School Dean Matthew Loden welcomed the audience - limited to 30% capacity amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic - and thanked them for their support.
“You all are the folks that make this work,” he said. Afterward, the orchestra and Larry Rachleff, music director and the Walter Kris Hubert Professor of Orchestral Conducting, joyfully returned to the stage for their first shows in 20 months.
The pandemic forced Shepherd School faculty to rethink music education. Many in-person meetings and ensemble rehearsals - a critical part of preparation for performance careers - were either dramatically different or entirely off-limits. But the faculty responded with creativity and resilience, and made arrangements for modified rehearsals and a series of virtual performances.
Through it all, the students remained focused as ever. Alisha Zamore, a senior majoring in clarinet performance, said she and her fellow students channeled their energy into individual practice.
“Even though we had the pandemic, a lot of us improved a ton,” she said ahead of the in-person concerts. “And it was really cool to come back and just hear everyone and just see how much people really improved. And people really, you know, didn’t let the pandemic deter them. They just kept going and kept practicing.”
Christopher Ellis, a graduate student studying cello performance, said he and his colleagues and friends are “kind of riding this wave of just joy” from being together and playing again.
“I think everyone is just unbelievably happy and excited to be able to be back in full force for this year,” he said.
“I think it’s going to be so amazing at the concert, just seeing all the work that we put in that was not necessarily seen by other people,” Zamore added. “It’s going to be very special.”
news.rice.edu/2021/10/04/shep...
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