photo stories

Changing the Tune: Music Student Seniors in the Age of COVID-19

April 23, 2021

Music education has suddenly become dangerous like never before. When COVID-19 halted life in March of 2020, music students adapted to an online, virtual format. An audience-based education was forced to become audience-less.

Senior music students faced an additional dilemma: their senior performances. The culmination of their undergraduate education was muddled with uncertainty. Nick Lipsette, trumpet performance major, and Maggie Stone, vocal performance major, are two seniors of the many that found themselves unsure of how their college career would conclude.

Nick Lipsette

Last spring, Lipsette found himself playing for his couches and computer in the living room of his house in Boone. Initially postponing his junior performance, the department eventually decided to hold it virtually. Now, one year later, Lipsette finds himself playing to a screen daily through $400 worth of sound equipment bought after this forced adjustment.

“The reason I like music so much is that I can get together with a group and create a product,” Lipsette said. However, that’s the very aspect of music playing and music education that has been affected the most by COVID-19. Lipsette continues to attempt to play with others virtually. At 7 a.m. Tuesday and Thursday mornings he plays through their “morning routine” with a few professors and a grad student.

Lipsette has played trumpet since he was seven years old. At 6 years old, he saw the musical quintet Dallas Brass, pointed at the trumpet player and told his grandpa “That’s what I want to do.” For Christmas that year, he got a trumpet and has been playing ever since. This spring, Lipsette prepares for his 45-minute senior performance, the last step before completing his undergraduate education.

In music classes, such as his orchestra ensemble, students can only practice in a room for 30 minutes before having to let the room air out for 15 minutes. This forces the ensemble to transition to different rooms a few times during their class period. The music department has been using a program to keep track of all the rooms being used for practicing in the music building so as to allow rooms the proper amount of time to air out due to the virally spread nature of COVID-19.

On Tuesday nights, the trumpet studio hosts a “master class,” now offered virtually, where students can show up with pieces they are working on and receive additional feedback from professors and other students. Lipsette and two other students often reserve a practice room in Hayes School of Music to attend the virtual master class in a small, socially distanced group.

To help the freshman who have started during the isolating period of COVID-19, a group including a mix of different classes meets in the stadium parking deck to play together socially distanced. Lipsette sees this as a great opportunity to build connections with the younger classes and get them out of their dorm room. The trumpet studio, Lipsette says, is “proud of trying to build that community” between fellow students.

In the spring semester of his freshman year, Lipsette toured Sweden and Norway with App State’s top jazz ensemble. In his bedroom, pins on a map remind Lipsette of all the places around the world that he has gotten the privilege of playing while he now sits in front of his laptop for virtual lessons.

Due to the virtual format, Lipsette said that it’s been difficult to get the feedback and critique to grow and improve that music students need in order to grow and improve. “Because playing through a microphone, you might not be able to hear the little things that I’m trying to do, that he’s asking for,” Lipsette said. As he plans for his senior performance, he’s now allowed to practice the three pieces he chose with his accompanist Bair Shagdaron, but it forced to do most of his playing on his own.

In December 2020, he submitted audition tapes and went through the application and virtual interview process for graduate school. Lipsette expressed appreciation for the connections he was able to make during his education through App State professor Jim Stokes, providing him with a solid foundation for his career. Lipsette accepted an assistantship position to work with the jazz faculty at University of South Florida where he will be continuing his studies in trumpet this coming fall.

Maggie Stone

When Stone first tried to rehearse with a “singer’s mask,” she thought: “It’s like singing into a pillow.” Stone used to practice with her choir in the same room, their voices unmediated by technology. Now, her choir meets virtually to learn their pieces. Each singer then records their separate parts to be edited together. Stone said that the “singer’s masks” the school purchased just didn’t work. To accommodate, all vocal classes have been moved online.

Before COVID-19 changed her education, Stone was in classes from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. every day. Stone meets in person only for her personal voice lesson and when practicing with her accompanist Clara Kempter, senior flute performance major, to prepare for Stone’s senior recital.

Since age two Stone’s had a passion for singing. Now a senior vocal performance major, Stone grew up listening to the jazz and beach music that her father’s band plays. Coming into the Hayes School of Music, Stone was intimidated; but she quickly learned that “everyone is super nice (and) really goofy.”

“If I didn’t have lessons in person,” Stone said. “I would’ve taken a year off.” However, she also said that this altered year has still been beneficial in several ways. “COVID has helped me learn to stay positive and allowed me to sit back and take a break and pause,” Stone said. Not only that, but “Zoom has been helpful because grad school interviews have been over Zoom, which is great to not have to travel.” Some teachers have even been giving free lessons, which Stone is glad to have access to.

For her senior recital, she will be performing 21 pieces, all different styles ranging from opera to American folk songs. In addition to Rachmaninoff, Stone intentionally chose pieces by Black composers and female composers as “they are extremely underrepresented, even now.” She will be singing in Italian, Spanish, Russian, French and German in addition to her native English.

“The hardest thing is not being with people,” Stone said in regards to all her classes being virtual for the past year. “My major is very social. It’s weird singing over the computer.” Stone attends classes either from her bedroom or the music library in Broyhill Hall.

“When I first moved up in August, I was in a funk because I couldn’t do anything,” Stone said. Her main ways of coping during this time has been through self-care and spending time with her boyfriend. When on-campus gyms opened by appointment only, Stone started going regularly. At home, Stone enjoys cooking and watching TV with her boyfriend.

When her voice professor, Joseph Amaya, is not on campus, he allows Stone to use his office to practice and work on her pieces. During this challenging year, Stone said she has tried to stay busy, always getting out and practicing. Having an additional space to do so has been helpful for Stone.

“Performing without an audience is almost worse because you don’t have people clapping and hyping you up,” Stone said. She’ll be performing her senior recital twice, once virtually through the school, and a separate off-campus recital in person. Stone’s career goal is to go into opera, hoping to go to grad school fall 2022 to continue her studies at Yale.

Highlighting the importance of Native American history

November 9, 2021

Allen Bryant is a professor in the Reich College of Education, director of the Gadugi Scholars Program, and a Cherokee native. In addition to his App State classes, Bryant teaches three courses at Cherokee High School with hopes to educate the next Cherokee generation and show that “Native people are still here. We come in all shapes, sizes and shades.”

Anya Walsh, senior English major, serves as the president of the Native American Student Association. Walsh moved from Indiana to Cherokee, North Carolina when she was 14 to be close to the Cherokee side of her family. During that time, Walsh said she connected more with her family history and culture through stories: “I never doubted that I was Cherokee, but sometimes it’s hard knowing but not feeling like you can prove it to yourself.” To Walsh, NASA is a place for native students to know they are “not the only one on campus.”

Bryant’s office wall is filled with framed photos of his Cherokee students participating in a variety of events over the years. In one of his self-proclaimed favorite photos on the right, his students tell traditional Cherokee stories to the kindergartners at their school. “It’s an honor just to know them,” Bryant said about his students. “But to teach them is even more.”

Walsh holds her heavily tabbed copy of “The Only Good Indians,” revealing her hibiscus flower tattoo paired with her family name written in Cherokee syllabary. In high school, Walsh was a part of the Gadugi Scholarship program where she got to take classes on Cherokee history: “They are still some of my most favorite classes I’ve ever had.” The program introduced her to App State, where she is now taking classes like “Native American Literature” that enable her to read books like the one pictured.

More than just a meal

Hunger and Health Coalition combats food insecurity with delivery service

March 25, 2021

Hunger and Health Coalition’s mobile delivery coordinator Candace Kelling-Salzer (left) and director of operations Anita Wilson (right) organize and process their March 23 shipment. This shipment, from Second Harvest Food Bank in Winston-Salem, holds the products for the first delivery to their new food pantry at Watauga High School.

Hunger and Health Coalition receives shipments three times a week: prepared meals arrive on Monday, produce and dry goods on Tuesday, and dairy on Friday, Wilson said. HHC orders food for five different programs, including two programs developed during the pandemic: a mobile delivery program and a food pantry at Watauga High School.

When COVID-19 hit Boone, Hunger and Health Coalition lost all their volunteers, director of operations Anita Wilson said. At first, it was just staff receiving and distributing deliveries, but it eventually allowed volunteers to come back granted they had a negative COVID-19 test. However, older volunteers are still unwilling to come, Wilson said, leaving HHC still in need of volunteers.

Candace Kelling-Salzer started volunteering with Hunger and Health Coalition Oct. 2020. She is now working on staff, coordinating their new mobile delivery program established after COVID-19 hit the U.S. Kelling-Salzer is excited for this “fulfilling” and “purposeful” role in which she gets to connect with the community.

The new pantry at Watauga High School will be available for students, families, staff and faculty. This first shipment contains dry goods and produce but cold and frozen items will be coming in next week, Wandler said.

Jennifer Wandler, Watauga High School social worker, helps unpack the first shipment Hunger and Health Coalition delivers to the food pantry hosted at the high school. Wandler said that they haven’t advertised the food pantry much because they were not sure when the first shipment would be, but that HHC is working with marketing classes to come up with flyers and foods classes to come up with recipes for the items they receive.

Hayes School of Music honors female composers

March 19, 2021

Hiu-Wah Au performs "Romance in A-Flat Major, Op. 11 No. 3" by Clara Schumann on the piano for Hayes School of Music's "Music of Women Composers" concert on March 16. The concert was livestreamed for viewers to prevent risk of exposure to COVID-19.

Priscilla Porterfield is the vocal area coordinator for the Hayes School of Music and Treble Choir director. When COVID-19 hit the U.S., Porterfield and other music professors had to drastically adjust the way they educate their students.

The School of Music has livestreamed numerous concerts during the pandemic, Porterfield said, but they have not gotten much online interaction in comparison to the "big crowds" they previously saw. This is “par for the course” across institutions, however, as music students and professors have been faced with the “danger” of their chosen career in the age of an airborne virus.

Kinsey Crabb, senior choral music education major, sings two pieces accompanied by Susan Slingland, staff accompanist. Crabb performed “There are Fairies at the Bottom of our Garden” by Liza Lehmann and “Come Down Angels” by Undine Smith Moore for the “Music by Women Composers” concert on Mar. 16.

Priscilla Porterfield, vocal area coordinator, sits in the audience to support her students as they perform for Hayes School of Music's "Music of Women Composers" concert. Porterfield said that as a professor, before COVID-19 hit she would have to be at the music building nearly every night for performances. Now, she can choose to “Zoom in” a few nights if need be.

Ellie Wee, Assistant Professor of Cello, and Bair Shagdaron, Professor of Piano, perform Amy Marcy Cheney Beach's "La Captive, Op. 40 No. 1.”

Rodney Reynerson, Keyboard Area Coordinator and Professor of Piano plays “Solitude” by Cecile Chaminade and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s “Nocturne in G Minor” as the fifth performance for a virtual audience in honor of Women’s History Month.

The Hayes School of Music remains dark and quiet during the livestreamed "Music of Women Composers" performance on Mar. 16. With the onslaught of COVID-19, a shift has taken place in musical culture, Porterfield says, as it has presented people with a virtual option. When streaming is an option, people are becoming less willing to go out of their way for in-person activities.

Jon Beebe, professor of bassoon, performs Ann Gebuhr’s "Ghost Dance" for a virtual audience in honor of Women's History Month.

Emme Hooks, senior music therapy major, bows to an empty room and virtual audience after performing a vocal piece by Lori Laitman in honor of Women's History Month with Hollie Lacy as the accompanist. The lack of an audience causes a lack of adrenaline, staff accompanist Susan Slingland said. Performers have to “keep up the act” and respond even though there is no applause.

'Surthriving' in a Liminal Education

January 2021

Mixed feelings dominate as students press on into their third semester of adjusted learning, with most classes being taught online synchronously and asynchronously. Here are ten glimpses into some of the opinions and spaces students have had to carve out in their personal lives to make room for their public learning experience.

Aaron Carpenter, a senior double major in Biology and Psychology, said he does not like the idea of online classes, as he has ADHD and the format is not conducive to his learning style. “It’s not what anyone expected.”

Martha McGougan, a junior Studio Art major, has gotten used to “creating” in their own space, but it’s not ideal. She and her friends came up with a word to express their experience: “surthriving.”

Noelle Banks, a junior Public Relations major likes doing online classes. She stated that she feels more organized with everything being online and is able to give better responses to teachers.

Jacob Villemagne, a senior Computer Science major, said that before COVID-19 changed his college education, he was able to get help from professors. “But now, it’s just zoom meetings and emails… I’m passing my classes but I don’t feel like I’m learning anything.”

Cammie Hogan, a junior Communication Sciences and Disorders major, has mostly asynchronous classes and enjoys being able to set her own schedule. This format has allowed her to take courses at three different institutions for her pre-med track.

Caleb Owen, a junior self-designing a degree in Leadership Studies and Community Engagement stated, “It’s not my preferred delivery of class, however, I’m finding ways to establish a routine.” He stated that it makes him better appreciate the two in-person classes he does have.

Marley Priest, a senior self-designing a degree in Multimedia Production Design, took a lot of online classes in high school: “I know how to do well in them, but I don’t get as much out of them.” This semester they chose reading-heavy classes so they “have something to do.”

Taylor Houston, a junior Sustainable Development major, is “not a fan” of online classes, but prefers a hybrid class schedule, meeting synchronously once a week, leaving the other day for independent work.

Brendan Martini, junior Political Science major, does not enjoy online classes. “The thing I loved about going to class was the walks to and from class and being a part of the town.” “Being in a classroom with other kids made me feel like I’m a part of something bigger than myself.”

Karen Mumma, a junior Communications major, said online classes feel more like a job than an education; “It’s all meeting I have to go to and projects I have to complete before the deadline and less enrichment.”

Local Businesses Affected by Lack of College Football

November 12, 2020

Even though Our Daily Bread server Frannie White started working after COVID-19 began affecting local businesses and sports in Boone, NC, she has still seen drastic changes as less servers are working shifts and the restaurant has cut hours, now closing at 5 p.m. White stated that while the "leaf season" brought in a lot of customers, it has slowed down a lot since then.

Restuarant Our Daily Bread on King Street in downtown Boone, NC has had to limit capacity due to COVID-19, but has also seen a decline in customers as a result of the college football season being adjusted. Nov. 9, 2020.

Capacity and staff needs haven't changed much, stated General Manager Colin Swaney of Black Cat Burrito, as the restaruant's physical size is small and take-out orders have made up for any lack of dine-in customers. However, they continue to "play it by ear, week by week," Swaney continued, as the visitor population has declined. Nov. 10, 2020.

Elliot Watson (left) and Alan Williams (right), servers at Black Cat Burrito, have seen a big change since App State football has been adjusted due to COVID-19. Before procedures were forced to change, thousands of visitors were coming into town for gamedays--good for downtown businesses, Watson and Williams stated. Watson, who had been working 30 hours a week before COVID-19 hit, has disliked how much his work scheudle has had to change. Nov. 10, 2020.

Local bar Boone Saloon on King Street in downtown Boone, NC has taped off every other booth and rearranged seating to encourage social distancing. Originally changing their hours because of COVID-19's impact, Boone Saloon recently extended them to 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., according to owner Kelly DuPree. A concern noted by DuPree is how business will be further affected after football season is over. Nov. 11, 2020.

The biggest change Katelyn Hennessy, bartender at Boone Saloon, has seen is regarding weekday football games: no one is coming into town, there's no tailgate atmosphere, and town camaraderie isn't what it normally is on a gameday. Nov. 11, 2020.

Faces of a Local Election

November 8, 2020

Outside Deep Gap Volunteer Fire Department, Zeke Jones campaigns for the Republican Party on Nov. 3, the day of the 2020 election. According to Jones, this polling site had been slower in comparison to the last day of early voting, but he was still able to talk to several individuals about voting for the school board, the race that Jones feels is the most important on this ballot.

Elizabeth Shukis campaiged for School Board candidate Ronny Holste outside the polling site at Hardin Park Elementary School. She volunteered to campaign for Holste as he attends a Bible study with her and is a "good friend." Shukis had been at different polls throughout the day and speaking about the election stated, "local is dear to my heart when it comes to education."

Vice President Pence Visits Church in Boone, NC

November 6, 2020

Vice President Michael Pence and Rev. Franklin Graham are greeted by a round of applause and standing ovation when attening the 9 a.m. worship service at Alliance Bible Fellowship in Boone, NC on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020, two days before the 2020 election.

On Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020, Alliance Bible Fellowship experiences a new scene as secret service officials stand outside in preparation for the arrival of Vice President Michael Pence.

Secret service officials prepare for the arrival of Vice President Michael Pence outside Alliance Bible Fellowship in Boone, NC.

U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx speaks to press outside Alliance Bible Fellowship in Boone, NC while waiting for the arrival of Vice President Michael Pence, of whom she referred to as a "great friend."

Vice President Michael Pence joined Franklin Graham, President of disaster relief organization Samaritan's Purse, for the 9 a.m. worship service at Alliance Bible Fellowship in Boone, NC on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020.

Frustrated Food Truck Owners

October 22, 2020

Alex Leon is the owner of El Tacorreindo, popular local food truck in Boone, NC. El Tacorriendo was rated Best NC Food Truck in by Strange Carolinas in 2019.

A Boone community member places an order at local food truck El Tacorriendo before they close for the night on October 20, 2020.

"People don't even know we're down here," said Craig Jennings in response to the complaint of some local businesses regarding competition and revenue loss. "We're all hurting. We're not malicious people, we're just a small business trying to stay afloat." October 21, 2020.

Craig and Marlo Jennings opened Smokin J's BBQ food truck in Boone, NC on May 1, 2020. Even during the challenging economic situation COVID-19 has brought to many communities, the Jennings' have still seen good business. "The Health Department loves us," they commented, due to the alternative resturant approach food trucks provide. October 22, 2020.

When Craig and Marlo Jennings opened Smokin J's, they decided to rent a building where they could park their food truck and provide customers with off-street parking so as to save street parking space for other businesses.

Highlighting Custodial Workers During a Pandemic

October 2, 2020

During the unusual year COVID-19 has created at App State, students and faculty are relying on custodial staff workers to a new degree when it comes to staying safe and healthy. These staff workers have had to undergo additional training and incorporate new procedures into their already busy schedules, enabling students to continue their education while preventing the spread of COVID-19.

In Wey Hall, custodial staffer Nathan Shook, is experiencing new challenges and routines he has not had to deal with in his 13 years of working at App State. Sianna Gutschick, sophomore operations assistant, found herself a new job at the beginning of the semester sanitizing commonly touched surfaces on an hourly basis in the Plemmons Student Union. Adelina Moctezuma, custodial staffer, works her afternoon shift in L.S. Dougherty, keeping in mind the rigorous training she underwent about new safety regulations amid pandemic. Lashey Reid, custodial staffer, cleans the classrooms and sitting areas on all four floors of Peacock Hall, finding the addition of masks a challenge.

These are just some of the individuals that work hard everyday to keep students and faculty safe.

Sianna Gutschick, sophomore, works in the Plemmons Student Union as an operation assistant. She started working on the first day of the fall 2020 semester. Gutschick has her temperature taken before each shift and works around a total of 11 hours a week. She enjoys the job and doesn’t feel unsafe or at risk.

Sianna Gutschick, sophomore, wipes down a table in the Solarium, a popular room where students sit and study in the Plemmons Student Union. Gutschick does hourly cleans while she works in the union, disinfecting all sitting areas, stair cases and tables in order to provide a safer environment for her peers.

Lashey Reid started working with App State about a month and a half ago to help keep Peacock Hall safe and clean for students and faculty. To keep herself entertained while she works 29 hours a week cleaning all the classrooms and sitting areas, Reid likes to listen to music of all kinds. Reid is thankful for what this job provides during a difficult time.