For the first time in more than a year, Parker music classes are back in swing. But instead of hearing the swell of voices emanating from the auditorium, or the beat of a drum from the band room, music at Parker has a new home: the great outdoors.

Under strict distancing guidelines and COVID-19 precautions, Parker’s choir and band have begun whole-class weekly rehearsals as was normal pre-pandemic. 

Upper School Choir Director Emma Castaldi, who left on maternity leave in December and returned for full in-person learning on April 19th, has had the task of both safely and effectively organizing Parker’s Upper School choir program while she adjusts to the new schedule and the end of her leave.

 According to Castaldi, being on maternity leave was the first time she has truly felt away from her job. “When you love your job, you’re always thinking about it. And you’re always coming up with new ideas and planning,” Castaldi said. “It was the first time that I didn’t really have time to think, I was so focused on this new baby and figuring out how to be a parent … it’s a wild experience. I’ll tell you that.”

With Castaldi back and nearly all students in-person full-time, both band and choir have begun semi-normal rehearsals in the afternoon G and H periods.

Due to social distancing guidelines and instruction from the medical subcommittee, the choir is not allowed to sing indoors except in limited groups with sufficient distance.

“Singing is like the super spreader of COVID. If you think about it, when you take a deep breath to sing or play a wind instrument, when you’re using your breath, you’re using way more breath than you do if you just are talking to somebody,” Castaldi said.

As such, Parker’s music programs have moved to rehearsing primarily outdoors. The choir has been meeting in the Courtyard, spread out around the fountain. Students in Grape Jam were issued a special singing mask with an extended front to prevent sucking in the mask fabric while breathing.

Despite these technical changes and logistical difficulties, Castaldi feels that her choir is excited to be back. “We spread out. We still have masks on. It’s hard to hear. But we’re doing our best,” Castaldi said. “It truly is the first time that we get to sing together in person in over a year.”

The choir is also permitted to use the auditorium for rehearsals but is limited to humming rather than singing. Concert Choir meets Monday and Thursday afternoons, and Grape Jam meets Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

In addition to the Concert Choir and Grape Jam group is Crescendo, a student-led female acapella group. Junior Sammi Coleman is one of the heads of the group, as well as a member of the Concert Choir and Grape Jam. The group stopped meeting at the beginning of the pandemic. As of now, Coleman said, there are no concrete plans to begin meeting again this year.

Despite the challenges, Coleman is glad to be singing in person and to have Castaldi back as well. “It was hard to pay attention online, and we could never hear each other — you’re just listening to yourself, which is not what a lot of people signed up for,” Coleman said.

Now that Castaldi is back, her ultimate goal for the rest of this school year is to broaden that connection and sense of community, which she hopes can materialize as an outdoor performance.

“I’m excited for hopefully a performance opportunity that will be just a really special moment for both parents, family members to see their kids perform again. But also for us to kind of have that feeling of sharing music with an audience,” Castaldi said.

The performance would be what Castaldi describes as a “music in the park” event, with attendees distanced outdoors, enjoying Grape Jam’s 24 vocalists.

But performance or not, both Castaldi and Coleman are just happy to be back. “Performing is never the biggest motivator for me … It’s just exciting to get something so community-based back to normal,” Coleman said. “A lot of what people have been missing out is that connection with other people, and music is a really good way to connect with others.”

Choir students are not the only ones glad to return to their music in-person—the Concert Band and Advanced Wind Ensemble, taught by Music Teacher and Middle and Upper School Band Director Alec Synakowski, have also returned to a semi-normal schedule.

Logistically, Synakowski faces many of the same challenges Castaldi does, as well as many different ones—for example, space requirements are much greater for wind instruments than singing. But like Castaldi, he is excited to be back. “Just as a teacher, it is just great to have everyone back, because I get a lot of energy from interacting with students,” Synakowski said. “And so to be back in person … man, it was fantastic.”

But returning to campus was not a walk in the park for Synakowski. Physically, to play as a whole band—almost 40 students—requires even more space than choir, according to the medical subcommittee, as musicians need to remove their mask in order to even play.

The band spreads out in the Courtyard or Webster parking lot, and in the event of bad weather, is permitted to break into small groups in indoor spaces such as the cafeteria.

But, according to Synakowski, the trouble is rewarding: “It is very hard work. It takes lots of organization. It takes lots of flexibility. And it is absolutely worth it.”

“Even though we’re all rusty, even though we haven’t done this together, even though we had to be outside, to get that feeling that the collective is greater than the sum of its parts, that synergy we’ve been missing so much,” Synakowski said.

Like Castaldi, Syakowski’s primary goal for the remainder of the year is to make up for all the lost time since March 2020.

“We do have a target down the road, and that target is almost the same target as it always is: you want a program that is self sustaining,” Synakowski said. 

Synakowski hopes to use these two months of in-person school as an opportunity for knowledge and experience to be passed down from grade to grade: seniors to juniors to sophomores to especially freshman, a group of students who has not until now played in the Concert Band live with their peers.

“We are trying to create that cycle, to get the engine running again. What we’re trying to do in eight weeks is get that cycle of music making happening,” Synakowski said. “It’s kind of like a good sports team. Think of like your captains on a sports team—those are the ones who really get things going.”

However, Synakowski does hope to have an opportunity to showcase some of the Advanced Wind Ensemble’s work on a film scoring project: “We have been studying film, we’ve been writing our own film music. We took a little snippet from Star Wars, we’ve stripped the music away, and we have rewritten music for our band to play.”

Synakowski hopes to hold a live performance of the products of his students’ hard work for a small audience in May, something he says looks to be possible “from the way the trajectory of things look right now.”

Above all, performance or not, Castaldi and Synaskowki are focused on rebuilding their communities as well as the musical arts at Parker.

“I want us as a community to realize that things that we value here at Parker, the arts, the performing arts, performances, theatre, drama, have been decimated by this pandemic,” Synakowski said. “I need our community to know that we need to pay extra attention and give extra support to get these things that we cherish back.”