The show must go on: Building a show choir during a pandemic

By Kim McDarison

Within the world of eduction, like most of the rest of the world, little escaped the concept of “new normal” after the arrival of COVID-19. 

For Fort Atkinson High School music teacher and choral director Craig Engstrom, until March 2020, programming was taking a traditional path, and that month, he said, he held auditions and chose the performers who would become the members of the South High Street Singers 2020-2021 school year show choir. 

And then everything changed. 

The school buildings within the School District of Fort Atkinson closed for in-person learning, and students and teachers alike learned a new system: virtual learning. 

Engstrom, like choral directors across the country, wondered how he would provide opportunities for his students, both in terms of learning and performing. 

He and his colleagues began networking, he said, sharing ideas through email, and slowly, a new kind of stage was set. 

A world before COVID

In a world before COVID, Engstrom said, students coming into the high school choir program would audition for placement. 

Most of the students interested in choir were previously involved with choirs at the middle school level, he said. 

For girls, there are opportunities in the high school treble choir, and traditionally, more girls than boys are interested in choir, so when auditioning for show choir, he said: “I never turn boys away.” 

After March auditions in the previous school year, those joining the South High Street Singers — a grades 9-12 show choir named after the location of the district’s former high school building used today as the district’s middle School — attend 80 minutes of class time, every other day. During that time, Engstrom said, the students learn music and choreography. 

Each year, students typically practice for two performances. Work on the first one typically begins in the beginning of the school year and ends in the middle of March, after which the choir begins working on a second show. 

“Under normal circumstances, we put in hundreds of hours practicing,” Engstrom said, with time found during the school day, evenings and weekends.

Then came COVID

Tracing steps taken from the beginning of the school year to a virtual competition held Saturday, April 10, Engstrom said: “I never thought we’d get to this point this year. We have been working on the music since July. The thought that there would be any performance was a daunting thought. When COVID came, everybody canceled their (show choir) competitions. We, under normal circumstances, hold one as well. So the thought that we would have something like this (virtual competition) made things more normal.” 

Looking back, he said: “I knew in my mind we would perform, but how it would be done, in-person, or prerecorded, that was a question. 

“We get bombarded with emails, and the ShowChoirLive idea was brand new. I know the director,” he said, adding, “high school choir directors have a pretty good network.

“Our choreographer, Ben (Schrank), who was originally from Milton, but today lives in Iowa, and I started thinking about music in April of last year. We didn’t know what to expect with COVID so we were just moving forward with ideas. When March (2020) came, we began thinking about how it all might change.” 

In choosing a theme of the virtual performance, Schrank and Engstrom landed on “Kids of the Future,” Engstrom said, because they wanted to send the message: “Don’t forget what it’s like to be a kid, and as you grow older, you can’t let that disappear. It was also meant to tell kids it is going to get better.”  

To prepare for the virtual competition, he said, he took the same steps he normally would.

By the time virtual, at-home learning arrived, Engstrom said, students had already attended an in-person summer camp in July where they learned music. 

“We had a choreography camp on the second week of school and they started learning the choreography. So we were in school for two weeks before we went virtual. The kids were in class and Ben was remote. They were with Ben this way for five days. After that, Ben would make videos of choreography and they watched the videos,” Engstrom said, noting that the hybrid model, bringing a combination of in-person and virtual learning, began right after Christmas.  

When students began returning to school, Engstrom said, he was eager to see how the kids would perform as a group. 

“We were back full swing the first week of January, but parents had a choice to keep students home and learning virtually, so we had a few students who were still learning from home,” he said.  

“It was the beginning of January and at first I wanted to sing so we rehearsed vocally. They hadn’t sung the songs together since the first week of school. When we did the choreography,” he recalled, “it was pretty clean.” 

When asked if he thought the students believed they could practice for a performance virtually, Engstrom said: “Yes. You could just tell how much they love doing it, so deep down, they are going to grab onto what they could do. I wondered: ‘Will they lose interest?’ I was surprised when we came together again as a group at how well they did. These kids are pretty self-motivated. This group, as a choir, was a particularly strong and dedicated group. It has a lot of seniors. Seniors are usually very good leaders and with so many, we had a particularly dedicated group this year.”  

In February, Schrank joined the group remotely while they were in class for a couple of days to help fine tune choreography. 

On with the show

In March of this year, the Fort Atkinson High School South High Street Singers competed in the first-ever virtual national show choir competition hosted by ShowChoirLive.com. 

The group competed against schools from Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin, winning Grand Champion and earning a place in the finals, which were held virtually on Saturday. 

In the final round, the group placed fourth, Engstrom said. 

They also learned on Saturday about their placement is a second virtual competition hosted by a high school in Arlington Heights, Ill. In that competition, they also earned fourth place.  

The students learned together on Saturday of their placement in both competitions, Engstrom said, adding that the reaction was bittersweet. 

“They were a little disappointed in the placements so there were some mixed emotions. They knew they did an amazing job, but judging for show choirs is so subjective. You never know how you will place from one competition to another. That is the worst part about the whole show choir experience. There really is no criteria when it comes to judging, and there are subcategories within categories, and they are scored with points,” he said, adding: “The kids were phenomenal. It was an amazing show. I couldn’t have asked them to do anything better.” 

A final act

For Engstrom, each milestone of this school year is also bittersweet, as it marks a final act: after 32 years as a choral director, with 30 of those years spent within the School District of Fort Atkinson, he will be retiring at the end of this school year.   

Looking at this COVID year, as his final year of teaching, he said: “It has been really interesting because I’m seeing things I know I will really miss. Teaching singing and teaching virtually through COVID has been so difficult. It has been difficult to figure out a good way to do it, and it particularly affected concert choirs. It has been a strong disadvantage for them. It has been beyond challenging, tiring. But, I’ll miss the kids more than anything.”

Among the most challenging parts, he said, was teaching the kids to dance and sing while wearing a mask. 

“Singing is such a visual thing. Your body is your instrument, you do a lot with your mouth. We did have to find masks that were more breathable,” he said.  

Among his last acts as choral director, he said, he will be selecting the students who will form next year’s show choir. 

Learning to teach virtually has brought some benefits, he said. 

“It has been amazing to teach choreography virtually and I could see that happening in the future. You’d never think of that in the past. It opens doors for Ben who can offer camps online,” Engstrom said, adding that ShowChoirLive.com, the organization that hosted the national competition, has already announced that it will host the virtual choir competition again, regardless of what happens with COVID-19.