After months practicing at home, Tacoma Youth Symphony puts on full virtual performance

After more than two months of practicing their instruments from their own homes, members of the Tacoma Youth Symphony are ready to entertain again. The students have produced a full virtual performance of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5, IV movement.

When Gov. Jay Inslee issued his stay-at-home order March 23, Dr. Paul-Elliott Cobbs, music director and conductor for the Tacoma Youth Symphony, had to postpone in-person rehearsals.

“It was very tough,” said Cobbs. “Being a musician, so much of communication is personal. When you’re communicating with your stand partner, when you’re communicating with the rest of the orchestra, having an in-person rehearsal is paramount because 50% of what we do is communicating with each other.”

The Tacoma Youth Symphony Association, which is currently made up of five orchestras and one traveling orchestra, all had to make the transition to remote rehearsals. There are over 300 elementary- to high school-aged students in the association. Each orchestra produced a virtual performance, except the traveling one.

Cobbs and his staff hoped they would be able to get back together before the end of the season. He was optimistic that the suspension of in-person rehearsals was only temporary, and that his orchestra would perform in front of all their friends and family as planned.

“I thought maybe we’d be gone for a couple of rehearsals and then we can get back together, but we couldn’t,” said Cobbs. “Every week when I saw the reports of things getting worse and worse, it was quite saddening.”

He especially felt bad for the seniors who were graduating, who were going to be denied giving a farewell concert.

Jabez Choi, a senior who has been part of the association for eight years, was in disbelief when the reality hit that he would not be able to perform in a final concert.

“I was shocked because I think the last concert of TYS is probably like the one that everyone talks about. I’ve been here for so long I was looking up to it, especially with the people I’ve known for such a long time,” said Choi, who was a co-concertmaster for the Tacoma Youth Symphony.

Cobbs didn’t want the seniors’ final year and the rest of his students’ hard work to go to waste. So, If there wasn’t going to be an in-person concert, Cobbs at least wanted to produce a virtual performance.

According to Cobbs, it was the first time in the Tacoma Youth Symphony’s 57-year history that a virtual orchestra performance was put together.

The performance was dedicated to essential workers and first-responders.

Either through virtual lectures, or by having his students play along with a video recording of himself conducting, Cobbs was determined to give his students the best experience possible.

“I’ve brought them along, week by week we’ve had weekly assignments getting them ready to do the recording. We’ve been really aggressive and keeping our students engaged,” said Cobbs. “Our learning curve went straight up. It didn’t go gradual, it was immediate.”

There were no group Zoom meetings or rehearsals. Instead, each student was responsible of recording their own part at home and submitting it after weeks or individual practices.

Keeping students engaged was a challenge

Still, there were many challenges. One of the hardest was trying to keep students engaged.

Unlike in-person rehearsals, Cobbs understood the struggles some students might have rehearsing from home. Even though his main job is to conduct music, he wanted to prioritize the well-being of his students.

“If you’re doing everything virtually, you don’t see as much, whether they’re enjoying what they’re doing or not. You can only imagine,” said Cobbs. “And when you get depressed you really don’t care that much. So our goal was to keep every single student engaged.”

However, Cobbs also saw how his students managed to face adversity even in tough times. He was proud of how his students handled the fast-changing circumstances and he hopes that they take something away from this past year.

“You know the pandemic is one thing, but there are going to be other things in life. You have to get up and deal with it and move forward. So, if you’ve done it one time, then you know how to do it again,” he said.

When rehearsals first transitioned to online, Choi was unsure whether a virtual performance could be done. He was hesitant because he believed music was supposed to be performed by a group of people — all together.

His doubts soon erased once he realized how easy it was to communicate with his fellow violinists. It was as if they were all still together.

“We were so far apart, yet we still somehow created that sense of togetherness through our constant texts and emails,” said Choi. “In that sense we weren’t really alone, we all had each other to push us through a feeling of loneliness.”

The Tacoma Youth Symphony Association plans to hold its annual Evergreen Music Festival in-person this summer.

According to tysamusic.org, due to COVID-19, the number of students and staff will be limited to adhere to social distancing guidelines. All other CDC recommended safety measures will be enforced as well.

The virtual performance can also be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-xnkbknLtI

Cobbs hopes this is the right step in order to resume in-person rehearsals this fall. He knows that things will not be the same, but he is continued to be encouraged by how far his staff and students have come.

“We’ve learned to appreciate those things that we have always done. But once they were taken away, it left a void,” said Cobbs. “But we have also learned to do things virtually. And I think that’s a good thing. So, when we get through this, we’ll actually be better for it.”