Thinking Allowed

Our Director of Strings, Ms Anne Sweeney, reflects on her pre-COVID trip to New York and opportunities gained to benefit all our musicians from Kindergarten to Year 12! 

I was incredibly fortunate to be awarded one of the SCEGGS Staff Learning Scholarships for 2020 and travelled to the USA in Term 1, before the COVID-19 global pandemic changed everything for us all.

The irony is not lost on me that, had I visited the USA even a week later, the trip would have been cancelled. I returned to Sydney on Wednesday 11 March and the USA went into lockdown on Friday 13 March. I thankfully tested negative to COVID-19 upon my return to Australia and served the 14-day quarantine period at home before returning to school.

In late February I attended rehearsals, observed masterclasses, workshops and individual lessons with string students of all ages – from pre-schoolers to post-graduate tertiary level – in New York City.

The School for Strings in Manhattan is New York’s premier Suzuki school. I was lucky enough to sit in on both individual and group classes over two days at this hub of musical activity in the centre of Manhattan. I am an accredited Suzuki Violin and Viola teacher here in Australia. It was wonderful to extend my Sydney-based Teacher Training to observe a myriad of students in the nurturing environment at the School for Strings, seeing the students and teachers alike having lots of fun along the way.

To get a sense of the school-based string programs in New York and its surrounds, I travelled to Long Island to spend a very rewarding and insightful day at Herricks High School. The bands, choirs and orchestras rehearse daily at Herricks, rather than once a week as we do in Australia. I was amazed and inspired by the whole process at this school – taking away lots of new warm-ups, repertoire ideas and interesting rehearsal techniques.

The New Jersey Youth Symphony warmly welcomed me to their rehearsal studios over a weekend, to observe tutorials and tutti sessions of beginner to advanced string orchestras as well as their symphony orchestra. It was terrific to see students of all ages engaging in these large ensembles and to gain pedagogical insight from their wonderful conductors.

I was spoilt for choice with tertiary level observation in New York, visiting the Julliard School, the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes School – all bustling and alive with wonderful music making. There was no mention of Coronavirus and absolutely no social distancing in place whatsoever in the schools and universities that I visited in New York. I was very fortunate to have this “up close and personal” interaction with the many string programs that I visited, without the limitations that we now encounter every day with COVID-19.

After an inspiring week in New York, I flew to Florida to attend the annual American String Teachers’ Association (ASTA) Conference. Both New York and Florida have been so badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. When I arrived in Orlando in early March, I joined hundreds of other string players and music educators from all over the USA and around the world to attend the 5-day ASTA Conference – this is inconceivable now, just a few months later! It could be many years before this annual event occurs again face-to-face in the USA and I was so lucky to be there.

Funnily enough, I attended quite a few lectures at the ASTA Conference on the topic of remote/online teaching. I thought at the time: “I’ll never use this in my own teaching, but I’ll go to this session anyway…it might be interesting to see how these poor folk who have to do this crazy online teaching actually manage it”.  Who knew that I would need all this information and the excellent resources provided just a few weeks later back in Sydney? Talk about serendipity for my very steep online teaching learning curve!

Music is about connection and shared humanity. I feel so incredibly blessed by the opportunity that SCEGGS has given me by being awarded a Staff Learning Scholarship. I was able to connect with and be inspired by so many amazing people. Whilst it was wonderful to attend the many lectures, masterclasses and concerts in the USA, it was equally valuable to connect with other string directors from all over the world, reflect on my own teaching practice and share ideas about music education.

I have been in contact with lots of the wonderful string educators that I met in New York and Florida over the past few months.
We have been swapping online teaching tips and tricks, sharing repertoire ideas and commiserating with each other through this awful pandemic.

It has been very satisfying to apply the plethora of knowledge that I absorbed in the USA to my everyday teaching at SCEGGS. I quite literally bound out of bed every day to come to school! We are so lucky to be able to resume our ensemble rehearsals and not have to rehearse via Zoom anymore. Performances are vital for a musician’s development and the Music Department has lots of exciting concerts planned for all our music ensembles (both pre-recorded and live) in Term 3. I look forward to sharing the wonderful talents of our K-12 string players with the SCEGGS community and feel so fortunate to be alongside the girls every day.

Anne Sweeney
Director of Strings K-12