Annie Vo (left) and Chaeyon Jang prepare to rehearse with the Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra at YMCA Camp Weaver in Greensboro, North Carolina. Photo by Khadejeh Nikouyeh
“This is not your typical orchestra venue. It’s the Warwick sports pavilion at the YMCA Camp Weaver, a summer camp, retreat and outdoor education facility” in Greensboro, North Carolina, writes Dawn Decwikiel-Kane in Wednesday’s (9/30) Greensboro News and Record. “The COVID-19 pandemic has kept the Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra’s three ensembles from rehearsing together in person since spring. Rehearsals moved online. That changed the other day, when masked members gathered at a social distance under the expansive, roofed pavilion for the start of weekly fall rehearsals. For many, it was their first in-person reunion in months. ‘It’s great to be back here!’ said 16-year-old violist Bailey Rickman, greeting symphony Education Director Peter Zlotnick…. ‘Acoustics are surprisingly good,’ Zlotnick said as he listened…. This fall, musicians will have both in-person and online rehearsal activities…. For friends Chaeyon Jang and Annie Vo, the rehearsal brought their first in-person meeting in months…. Program Music Director Evan Feldman led the 48 musicians in rehearsing Beethoven’s ‘Egmont’ Overture and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Overture in C.… ‘We can teach music no matter what the format,’ Feldman said. ‘But what they’re doing here, there is no technological substitute for it.’ ”
