The intersections of art and education are often overlooked. The Seattle Times plans to run periodic pieces by young people in Washington state about their perspectives on these subjects. This article is by Yoon Lee, a 17-year-old Korean American violist from Bellevue who is a junior at Seattle’s Lakeside School.
There is something visceral about group music, uniting to create a cohesive whole. As a violist in the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras and the Lakeside Upper School Orchestra, this innate connection is one I have held close since my first forays into orchestral performance when I was 7 years old.
Such experiences available for youth artists suffered massive interruptions due to COVID-19.
I spoke with students and leaders from three local organizations — SYSO, the Lakeside Upper School Orchestra, and Clover Park High School Choir — about how they persevered, even evolved. They adopted new technology, acclimated to remote formats, and adapted upon returning to in-person rehearsals and performances. But not all programs weathered the pandemic equally.
The beginning of the pandemic brought shared disorientation. When Lakeside’s director of visual and performing arts, Andrew Krus, found out he would have to teach virtually in spring 2020, his response was, “Huh? How were we going to do arts on a laptop?”
People scrambled to settle on effective technology, often “having to figure everything out from scratch, as we had never been through a pandemic before,” said Izchel Chacón, SYSO’s manager of orchestras and partnerships. Clover Park choral teacher Dr. Suna Chung said she “felt lost, confused, and unprepared” when faced with the challenge of mastering six or seven software applications.
Despite the chaos, each group persisted. “We’ll figure it out” was Music Director Juan Felipe Molano’s mindset in SYSO’s decision to switch to a virtual model. “As artists,” he says, “we always need to be…