[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, how do you socially distance a Symphony Orchestra? During yesterday's Reading of the Names, our on-air memorial ceremony, we were graced with some lovely Shostakovich, even though lovely and Shostakovich aren't often words you hear back to back, but still, recorded by the Chamber Ensemble Trilogy, part of the New York Youth Symphony.

This morning we're joined by the Youth Symphony's Executive Director, Shauna Quill, and a little more music, a bit less somber this morning. This is Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 Movement 3, performed by the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra, led by Musical Director Michael Repper. Shauna Quill, welcome to WNYC.

Shauna Quill: Thank you so much, Brian. I'm delighted to be here.

Brian Lehrer: We thought of your organization for yesterday's ceremony after someone had called into the show to share how you are managing in-person rehearsals as you're starting to come back when our music person John Schaefer was on with us to talk about the beginning of the return of live music performances. Before we ask about your pandemic system, how to socially distance an orchestra as you reconvene, tell everybody a little bit about the Youth Symphony pre-pandemic, how did it work? Who were the kids who are involved?

Shauna Quill: Sure. We actually have six programs, including the orchestra, jazz, chamber music, composition, musical theater, and conducting programs. We're serving almost 300 students every year, and they're from throughout the tri-state area. Pre pandemic, it was really that tri-state area, but then, of course now, so much of what we do is also online, so we're actually serving a national student base, and even as far away as Cyprus and London. Pre-pandemic, our local students, ages 12 to 22.

Brian Lehrer: 12 to 22, that's quite a range. How do you join auditions? Does a 12-year-old have to compete against the 22 year old for that second violin slot?

Shauna Quill: [chuckles] They do, yes. The average age of the orchestra musician is 16, and so we do have the 12-year-olds and they are mostly violinist, but we do have some extraordinary prodigies on the flute and clarinet. Our principal clarinet right now is only 15, but yes, there are some students who are in college. Some of them, we call them the lifers if they start at12 and they're still in 22, they might even be in a master's program at that point, but I think our students are very-- it becomes part of their community. It's something that they generally stay as long as they can.

Brian Lehrer: It sounds like a great scene. Having played in student orchestras myself when I was a kid, I know how bonding it can be and what a great part of growing up. Now you are starting to rehearse in person again, how long was it suspended for?

Shauna Quill: Actually, a year ago, we suspended, and through the end of the season we met online, but starting in September, we actually came back. Again, we socially distance according to CDC guidelines, but we brought those students-- We have 110 person orchestra, so we broke them into four groups, and each group the students were a minimum of 6.5 feet apart, fully masked with bell covers, and specially designed masks for winds and brass. Since September, we've been back.

The great thing is that even this scenario of groups that never saw each other, we did our first professional recording in November at the DiMenna Center. We recorded works by Valerie Coleman, Jessie Montgomery, and Florence Price. Now, in post-production, we're layering them all together, and so we hope to release that in the summer.

Brian Lehrer: You mean different players recorded their parts from home and then you're coordinating them?

Shauna Quill: No, no. The four groups that we had were at the DiMenna Center, and Isaiah Abolin, their amazing engineer, recorded us all, and then Judy Sherman, our producer, is layering the four groups together in post-production.

Brian Lehrer: I see, so you better have good metronomes or good conductors.

Shauna Quill: [chuckles] Exactly, yes. Well, some of it's to a quick track, but our conductor, Mike Repper, was amazing in prepping them. I've only heard snippets but it's fantastic. We've definitely--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Shauna Quill: Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, we definitely have tried to be as our assisting like conductor said last week, it's creative weekend, we've done a lot of rep readings of things they've never been able to do before, and now we're working with our student composers to produce 20 new works to be premiered online in May. The students are doing well.

Brian Lehrer: That's awesome.

Shauna Quill: To hear what the high school students were saying right before this, I mean, everything's online. Our goal for this year was like, "Okay, if their school is online, we have to do whatever we can to get them in-person," because that's how music should be. It should be to play with each other. In consultation with my friend who runs a COVID unit in Massachusetts, as well, as an emergency room doctor in Brooklyn, we came up with protocols that allowed us to do as much as we could in-person because the kids need that. So, we're proud that we were able to do that all year.

Brian Lehrer: The biggest question that I had about how to socially distance an orchestra was, what do you do about the wind players who have to breathe out, and breathe out sometimes fairly forcefully to play their instruments? You just said a very intriguing thing a couple of minutes ago, which is that you have special masks for wind players, really?

Shauna Quill: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: I was a flute player in the orchestra when I was in high school. You have a mask for a flute player?

Shauna Quill: We do actually. There was an amazing article in The New York Times featuring the University of New Mexico marching band, and this band had engineering alumni who engineered masks specifically made for each instrument. As soon as I read this article, I had my director of artistic Ops call them and say like, "Well, how do we get these? Where do we get these from?" By that point, it was a month later and they were like, "Yes, we can do this for you," and so they custom-made these masks.

As a flute player, which I was as well, the magnets are around the head joint. If you can imagine, if you were to cut a surgical mask horizontally, and then magnets keep it around the head joint, you put it through, I don't know if I'm describing this. [chuckles] You can't see my hand gestures as I'm talking, but [laughs] it slips through. As soon as you take it out, the magnets close the mask, so that it's secure again.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Would it be very different for, let's say, a reed instrument player like a clarinet or a trumpet player who's got to put their mouth in a whole different way?

Shauna Quill: Yes, so each mask is designed for how that mouthpiece fits in. The slits are in a different place, the magnets are in a different place. I will say the oboes are not thrilled about it because no one wants a magnet closing on their reeds, it could break it. In that case, sometimes we've just said, just do a slip-through surgical mask, but that's the hardest part is the reeds.

Brian Lehrer: Have you required testing for your players when they come together?

Shauna Quill: Yes, especially for the recording sessions that we did in November because those were all day, and we had breaks for the HVAC system to renew the air, but testing was something we did. Every two weeks, we did testing with the students, but they took it really seriously because they knew that it was an important project. To record our very first professional album was a huge priority, so they all signed a Community Health PACT as well, to say that they would do this, not only at the New York Youth Symphony but that in their daily lives, they would also abide by certain rules. It came off perfectly so we couldn't happier.

Brian Lehrer: Are going to get back to live performances soon?

Shauna Quill: Yes. We're actually talking with our partners at the Harlem School of the Arts about that, trying to use their beautiful new venue, the Dorothy Maynor Hall in May. I think trying to work with our partners is really the best way we can do this. Obviously, we [sound cut] Carnegie Hall three times a year, and of course, they've closed their doors. We do have our date set for next year and we're just waiting on what the restrictions will be, how many people in the audience, how many people on stage, backstage. It's a little bit of a waiting game and a patience game, but hopefully, this spring, we'll either be doing a combination of outside performances or small venues where you can have a couple of parents here and there in the audience, but nothing as large as we're used to, of course.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Shauna Quill, Executive Director of the New York Youth Symphony. Queue the Rachmaninoff.

Shauna Quill: [chuckles] Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: We'll leave you with a little more of that. Good luck to the New York Youth Symphony and all your different ensembles.

Shauna Quill: Thank you so much.

[music]

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