During the pandemic, the music scene seemed to be hit harder than ever. Singing turned from something enjoyable for audiences to being named one of the highest spreaders of the virus. So what happened to the choir scene post-pandemic?
In the height of COVID-19, there were specific regulations implemented for those who sang including having to stay six to eight feet apart and wearing a mask at all times. The hybrid class schedules allowed online lessons where students had to sing at home, and there were no live performances. This made choir enrollment at Pleasant Valley to decrease by around 20%, and choirs around the country are struggling to get their numbers back to normal.
At Pleasant Valley in particular, there has been a significant drop in the number of singers in choirs such as PV singers and the Treble choir, and the participants in the 8th grade choirs have seen a slight loss in students from years prior.
PV choir director Meg Byrne recognizes there has been a decrease in enrollment in her classes. “There was a sort of ‘fear factor’ when it came to choir. It was labeled as the number one spreader of COVID, and that along with students being online made choir very unappealing,” she stated.
Colleges have been hit the hardest because of this problem. The current freshmen and sophomores were in the midst of the epidemic when they started college, and with a brand new school, new responsibilities and having to sing in their dorm rooms, some students just thought it was all too much.
University of Northern Iowa’s UNI Singers is an extracurricular choir for students who are non-music majors, and it used to be an extravagant choir filled with non-music majors who were looking for something enjoyable in college. However, as a result of COVID, the choir’s numbers dropped from over 100 singers to merely 20 within a couple of years.
With members either being forced to sing at home or sing eight feet apart, a lot of the community parts of choir were neglected. People missed the friendships that made choir rehearsal enjoyable for students, and social interaction between students was often discouraged as they stood far apart from their peers.
But as regulations continued to relax, choir started to become more accessible to the public. This year, Pleasant Valley’s Chamber Choir had the opportunity to sing with various collegiate choirs and sing Christmas carols at nursing homes around the Quad Cities.
“I really enjoyed caroling the best out of anything we did this year,” said senior Ethan Kilcoin. “It was a lot of fun, and it was something that I missed a lot these past couple of years.”
Out of the 20% of the enrollment that was lost during the pandemic, Pleasant Valley has gained back more than 10% in the span of just one year. With more people beginning to enjoy choir again, students at PVHS are starting to recruit their friends to join a choir in order to grow the organization.
“We are honestly just riding the wave,” said Byrne. “I am confident that through the grapevine people will eventually find choir again, and things will soon be back to normal.”
