Due to COVID-related reasons and the cancellation of a scheduled spring break trip to Italy, fewer students have joined East’s choir program in the past two years than at any other point in its history — making this year the smallest the class has ever been.
Enrollment has gone from 350 people to less than 150 in the past two years. Choir director Ken Foley mentioned that with students having to perform on WebEx, then with masks and not be able to experience live audiences during concerts they started to choose other electives.
“I think a lot of people decided [in 2020] ‘I’ll just go take another class because what are we going to do in choir on a WebEx?’” Foley said.
Aside from COVID, this year’s spring break trip to Italy was canceled. This trip is another part of the choir program that draws in new recruits as well as keeps current students drawn into the program due to the rare experience it offers, according to Foley.
Although Foley is shocked by the drastic drop in students for his choir, he’s much more focused on teaching the people who show up. Even though numbers are low right now, Foley believes they will build back up as time goes on.
“I’m not going to be worried about numbers,” Foley said.” I’m going to be worried about the people who are there, not the people who aren’t.”
Senior Choir student Kate Whitefield has the similar view to Foley on why the class is the smallest it’s been. She believes that due to COVID, underclassmen weren’t able to see concerts and tours hosted by the choir which would have encouraged them to join. Whitefield also credits upperclassmen dropping the class due to the cancellation of the Italy trip.
“I know of a lot of seniors who were in Choir and loved it, but because the trip wasn’t happening, they decided to prioritize other classes,” Whitefield said.
Though it’s been an adjustment, Whitefield has enjoyed being in a smaller choir class. She’s been able to form more relationships with new people that probably wouldn’t have happened as easily in a bigger group, being able to interact more frequently with others during class.
“We’ve done what we call section circles more often than we did last year, which really helps because you can hear your own part,” Whitefield said.
Even though Whitefield misses the powerful sound that the bigger group had, she believes that this smaller group will get to that level after a couple months of practice.
“I think we can definitely make up for the lack of numbers just because everyone that’s in Choir now is really dedicated and you know it’s their main priority cause they can’t use the trip for motivation,” Whitefield said.
Senior Anohita Paul has looked forward to performing at East and going on the Italy trip since she joined her elementary school choir program in fifth grade. But after two years of not performing live and the trip to Italy off the table she decided to drop the class.
Paul felt as though the right fundraising measures weren’t taken into consideration when dealing with whether the Italy trip should be canceled or not.
“I wish they had discussed with students [regarding the trip] so we could have worked together to either fundraise or discuss alternatives,” Paul said.