Arts and Lifestyle — The St. Marker

Amber Lee ‘24

Being remote is hard for everyone. Especially, for St. Mark’s musicians, students who participated in the school orchestra struggled to create music while they were in separate locations. To overcome the space problem, orchestra members each recorded their parts of the piece via SoundTrap and sending it to Mr. Wallace to combine them together. Thus, I interviewed a student, Roy Baeck ‘24, about his special experience at orchestra this year.

“The SoundTrap recording was awkward to do at the beginning. It was my first time using the program, and probably everyone else’s first time, too. I struggled with setting up the recording and figuring out how to do it right. I even had to ask around to be able to properly set it up and record,” said Roy.

According to Roy, the idea is that everyone needs to record their own parts of the orchestra piece as listening to a pre-recorded version. They have to have earphones on one ear to hear the music and be able to match the beats, while listening to their own playings. If they make a mistake, they will have to go over and record their parts again.

It seems like everyone at Orchestra is getting better at using the SoundTrap and more comfortable with their online performance. Roy also told me that, “although I struggled in the process, in the end, I’m grateful that I was able to participate in orchestra. I didn’t have to just sit in my room and practice violin on my own but practicing a piece that was meant for a group of people.

It’s nice to connect to other St. Mark’s musicians through this new way of approaching music. There was also some “tricks” from Mr. Wallace to make the orchestra better, who patiently taught and organized the whole group: he usually had each member of the class recording the piece three times, just to make it sound like a huge orchestra. Also, according to Roy, he told the group that he was able to edit out their mistakes so that everyone will be more willing to practice instead of fearing if they could do well. Although I haven’t heard the compiled music yet, but let’s look forward to it—”it will be better than the normal recording we would have done,” said Roy.

Music is not a community activity that can be easily dealt with remote learning. Especially music that has to be made together, such as orchestra, listening to others’ parts and harmonizing along are crucial. Although St. Mark’s students would have to practice individually, the SoundTrap recording allowed them to feel like they were together. Thanks for Mr. Wallace coming up with the idea and the students cooperating, the St. Mark’s orchestra could then continue to thrive during these hard times.

By Sophie Ledonio ‘23

COVID-19 has brought a number of changes and adjustments to our normal everyday lives and many of these changes have had a negative impact on people and especially on students in schools. There are many restrictions when it comes to after school activities such as many different sports that require close contact. However, one activity in St. Mark’s that has come out stronger is our school’s winter play! This year, our theater director, Mr. Kent has chosen to put on two winter plays instead of one.

The two plays that Mr. Kent has chosen to put up for this year’s winter season are Dead Man’s Cellphone and Eurydice, both of these plays come from the playwright Sarah Ruhl. Dead Man’s Cellphone tells the story of a woman who is forced to confront her own mortality, redemption, and the need to connect to a technologically advanced world. Eurydice is the story of the old Greek myth of Orpheus told in the perspective of its heroine, Eurydice must travel to the underworld where she reunites with old family members and loved ones from her time on earth.

Due to the COVID-19 virus, the winter play cannot be performed in the way it usually is. I interviewed Mr. Kent, asking him if it was difficult to adjust the winter play to the COVID-19 restrictions and he said, “Absolutely! One of the biggest challenges was simply knowing that we will not be able to bring an audience into the Black Box and that our performance will need to be remote and most likely over zoom or via a webinar. Also, with social distancing, any character interactions the play demands need to be adjusted and reworked.” I also asked Mr. Kent how he planned to approach directing this play since it cannot be practiced or performed in person, he said, “My hope is to create a performance that blends elements of live theater and elements of cinema to create engaging and impactful performances. Both of these plays have some interesting monologue sequences that I am excited to try to combine with some stylized video moments. Instead of trying to perform the plays live, the performances will most likely be prerecorded then edited together with the filmed moments to create a more visually interesting and emotionally engaging piece of theater. There have been several professional theatrical productions that have used this method during the past year and it has turned out successfully. My hope is that together, collaborating with the cast and crew, we can create something pretty special and memorable.” This definitely a new approach to the winter play that St. Mark’s has not seen before, so they should be very new and exciting performances!

Because COVID-19 has brought a lot of doubt and negativity, Mr. Kent is very confident that the finished product of the plays will turn out amazing! He says, “In the end though, although there will be plenty of challenges, some foreseen and others that come up as we go along, I am confident that we will still be able to create some impactful and meaningful theater both for our audience and for the actors and crew involved in the plays.” We look forward to seeing the both of the plays in the winter!