Distance learning can’t defeat Berkeley High Jazz
Not being able to play music together this year has proved tough, but lockdown has also left BHS’s young musicians more deeply versed in jazz than perhaps any previous class.
In a year like no other, Berkeley High Jazz meets together on Zoom to study jazz harmony and history, and plays “together” via BandLab. Image: Courtesy BHS Jazz
In a semester like no other, Berkeley High’s vaunted jazz program is ending the year transformed. Some of the changes have been painful nothing can replace sharing the same physical space and making music together but distance learning has also provided new opportunities that will leave the young musicians more deeply versed in jazz than perhaps any previous class.
Gladysmarli Del Valle Vadel Marcano has been passionate about music since she was 4 years old. Growing up in Venezuela, she studied musical theory, participated in children’s choirs, mastered the violin, and joined an orchestra all by the time she was 9! Basically, she was a prodigy.
Her love of music only grew as she got older, so to afford her education, she began selling fruit through her family’s business in Yaracuy. It was through that job and donations from her community that she was able to participate in La Maestra’s prestigious competition in Paris this year.
After spending six years as a violinist in the Yaracuy Symphony Orchestra and the Yaracuyana Youth Orchestra, Gladysmarli became interested in conducting.