When colleges sent their students home in the Spring because of Covid-19, most expected to be able to return in the Fall, a hope that faded as it became clear that the virus will continue to pose a risk throughout the upcoming semester. Music schools and conservatories have spent the past several months weighing the risks and coming up with plans to adapt their classes and instruction to continue providing training to their students within current guidelines - including the ever-changing research about the risks that singing and wind instruments can pose in spreading the disease. This Saturday in a special one-hour A Tempo (8/29 at 7 pm), host Rachel Katz checks in with four schools to find out what opportunities they are offering their students.
Guests will be Paul Bryan, Dean of The Curtis Institute of Music, which is opting for an all-online semester; Donna Brink Fox, Senior Associate Dean of the Eastman School of Music, which is providing as many in-person lessons and small ensembles in person as possible within current guidelines while keeping academic classes online; Paul Hogle, president of the Cleveland Institute of Music, whose "Start with Music" approach rearranges the usual semester schedule to allow for on-campus lessons and chamber groups prior to the beginning of its mostly online academic instruction; and William Berz, professor and director of the Department of Music at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, which is offering limited in-person instruction along with a mostly virtual semester.