Last year, midway into
Steinway Society of Riverside County’s awards festival, COVID-19 forced closure of Xavier High School, where the event was being held, forcing an abrupt change from live performances to self-recorded recitals.
This year,
Jim McCormick, director of the awards festival program, was ready and well-adapted for a sophisticated live Zoom event that was held over two Sundays, March 7 and 14.
“After some initial ‘birthing pains,’ the process of virtual connection in education via Zoom and other platforms has become almost second nature,” McCormick said. “We still encountered a few surprise kinks along the way, but, as with anything else, when you give it your attention and continue to refine it, the virtual connection works so much better than many of us would have expected.”