I didn’t want to do it. I fought against it. I rolled my eyes when other friends in this profession told me about their “virtual recitals”… it sounds like an oxymoron to me.

But after five months of teaching online, I was seeing major progress in my students, and they had no place to show it off! Some had started to do two lessons per week, since the pandemic left them with so much free time. Also, students who don’t usually continue over the summer were continuing… and in the summers I teach almost all student-selected repertoire… which tends to inspire more practicing. I couldn’t keep all this goodness to myself, so I broke down and scheduled The Music Dispatch’s first ever Virtual Recital.

While there is absolutely no substitute for sitting in the same room sharing music, there were a lot of good things about the experience. Attendance was good, sound quality was decent, and there were lots of guests that would not have been able to join us for a “real” recital: Grandma and Grandpa from out of state, Aunts, cousins, and friends, not to mention EVERYONE’S PETS!!!!!!

It was great to work toward that “performance ready” level of proficiency in the weeks leading up to it, and I had some pretty good feedback from students afterward. People liked seeing what everyone else had been working on! I also hope that it gave attendees and performers feel a little less alone in this strange landscape - it certainly had that effect on me.