say goodbye to the old campus. “I’m happy to be working from home, but I do miss singing,” she says. Making music is very much a social experience that she misses. “The personal interactions, the spontaneity, seeing colleagues, chatting about the news and TV and snacks — I’m a personable person and enjoy shooting the breeze.” She hopes that, when this is all over, “I can open my mouth and there’s something there.” Meanwhile, teaching remotely she has had tech difficulties such as lag time — making it impossible to sync the piano to voice — but has since learned of audio interfaces that work with a separate microphone. Ellis is grateful for high-speed internet connection, but working from home means being your own tech support. She has found that the situation enables students to become more independent and learn to depend on their ear and not the piano. The instructor has been teaching the origins of African American vocal techniques, classical, jazz, and blues to her students, all future music educators. “It’s an opportunity to
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expand their own singing capabilities. Each class spotlights a vocal technique: breathing, vowel placement, history, vocal pedagogy.” Ellis acknowledges that no one knows how long this way of teaching will endure — it has already been far longer than anyone expected. “I don’t want to be sad and depressed, so I find exciting things to do but in a different way. You have to be active and continue to learn and be excited about what you do.” After a lifetime of juggling — her evenings had been consumed with driving her daughters to swimming, gymnastics, riding lessons, Princeton Girlchoir — Ellis is settling into this new routine, with one daughter at Chapin and one schooled from home. It just requires having a lot of iPads, with four Zoom meetings happening at once while the girls do cello and violin lessons. “That’s part of life in the Ellis household — you have to do music.” Ellis has one adult daughter who, before COVID, sang with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. When a vaccine finally is developed, “I think some of this will stay. Look at the money you can
save by not being on campus. Not everyone wants that experience. Colleges will have to adapt.” Ellis says the cool thing about 2020 is that we can develop 20-20 vision. “This year has helped us develop clear vision about what’s important in relationships, jobs, families; what it means to be a good citizen; and what we need from our government leaders. It would be foolish to go back to the ‘good old days.’ They were not always so good. The key to life in the future is to find alternative ways to do things so everyone has a place, that there aren’t people who can’t contribute.” “I tell my students, we will sing together — that will happen,” she continues. “As musicians we bring light into dark. Whether in visual arts or film or literature, our job is to keep the glow of this world going, to heal from this gaping wound. We have done it throughout history. You really have to pay attention — this is the time you have, and you have to make the most of it. All we can do is have faith and put one foot in front of another and do your job and love people.”