A labour of love by a local music school is getting some attention online.
Students and faculty from Brio Music Academy in Chatham worked together to create a virtual choir performance. The students, ranging from ages seven to 15 performed their own rendition of A Million Dreams from the movie The Greatest Showman.
The video was released on May 4 in celebration of Music Monday, a national initiative that recognizes the importance of music education.
According to Rachel Schwarz, Brio Academy owner and artistic director, each student learned their part remotely and filmed it at their home. With the help of technology, Schwarz spent time with each student helping them practice their part and go through their notes.
"This entire thing was learned virtually," she said. "It was after they weren't able to come into the studio anymore. They learned their parts at home. I sent their part learning recordings home and then the students and their parents did all of the filming at home and they submitted their videos."
Brio Academy has transitioned into digital learning practices since the start of the pandemic. Although non-traditional, Schwarz said it's allowed the students and teachers to try out new things that they would never get to experience otherwise.
"When we realized that we were going to have to shut our physical space down, we decided that we're going to pivot into online learning," she explained. "It was great because there are a lot of opportunities like this virtual choir, that something like that offers students a different kind of learning that we were able to take advantage of."
Schwarz said a total of about 100 hours was spent to create the video.
"It's a lot to put together something like that. To edit it and to make sure everybody's videos are the same quality. So there are logistics that go into something like that that you might not immediately realize," she said.
According to Schwarz, the goal was also to try and spread some joy by bringing music into people's homes during the pandemic. Within 24 hours of posting the video to Facebook, it garnered over 8,000 views. The team is hoping to produce a similar project in the future, this time on an even larger scale.
Although there was a lot of work to pull it off, Schwarz said the response that the video has gotten and the joy that it's brought both the students and the public makes it all worthwhile.
"I just want to say thank you for everyone that has liked and shared the video," said Schwarz. "The comments that people have posted on the video, the kids get to see that and it's shared with them and it means a lot."
https://www.facebook.com/learnwithbrio/videos/663827994163412/?vh=e
