the Crowden Letter
Making Music While Sheltering-in-Place
Music classes had to pivot, although students continued to rehearse and practice together as best as possible. Public performances shifted
In the face of adversity, unable to play together in person, the Crowden community is responding to the pandemic with creativity, empathy and action, and an even deeper belief in the power of music to change lives. The world is reawakening to the power of
music to—as the apocryphal Plato quote goes and Anne Crowden loved to say—“give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything.” Within the Crowden family, we are already driven by that belief, and our teachers, students, and families are rising to the occasion to both keep making music and support our local communities. The Crowden School finished the spring semester using distance learning Monday through Friday. The transition proved arduous, but our families and faculty persevered with admirable fortitude, grace, and dedication.
online: watch parties for the seventh and eighth grade solo performances, an excerpt of spring repertoire for a violin instrument class video, and an all-school performance video of Fiddle Faddle, which traditionally closes the school’s public Spring Concert. As usual, students applied the empathy they cultivate playing music together to their study of the world around them, and taking action. Eighth grade leadership organized a school-wide “Practice-a-thon” during spring break to raise money for local food banks like Alameda County Food Bank, where students usually volunteer as part of their study of nutrition and hunger awareness.
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