“Colleges across the country have shut down campuses and moved classes online,” writes Peter Feher in Tuesday’s (3/17) San Francisco Classical Voice. “And music schools are … dealing with the coronavirus crisis.… The Colburn School [is] suspending ‘all in-person instruction, performances, and events’ until at least April 13 [and] requiring students to move out of its residence hall…. San Francisco Conservatory of Music canceled most performances and bumped its spring break up a week, with classes to resume online on March 30…. SFCM is … allowing students to stay [in residential housing] if they choose [and] offering summer housing options for international students not in a position to move.… At Juilliard, students have been told to move out of residential facilities…. Jieming Tang, a fourth-year violin student at Juilliard, has seen the coronavirus outbreak from multiple perspectives, first from family in China and now in New York City…. It was the growing seriousness of the outbreak in China that first spurred American music schools to take preventive actions…. As instruction moves online, the value of a class, a grade, a degree, is thrown into sharp relief.… ‘Music lessons … are a much more personally involved education model than simply lecturing and taking notes,’ said Tang.”
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