Nashua Community Music School Serves Mission Despite Coronavirus

Nashua, NH — The Nashua Community Music school is unique in its mission, intent on providing more than just private music instruction. The 35-year-old nonprofit organization is also focused on the “community aspect” of its name.

“In the last ten years, the school has really expanded its music outreach programs, we’ve started really focusing more on the community aspect of the community music school, and so we’ve been partnering with different organizations, schools, and service providers in the area,” Tori Caruso, the Assistant Director of the Nashua Community Music School said. “We have a growing music therapy program, and also our private lessons as well, but we’ve definitely become more of a well-rounded music school over the last ten years.”

Nashua Community Music School, in serving its community, partners with local organizations that serve underserved communities and populations.

“We provide quality music to the people in our community that need it the most,” Caruso said.
That comes in several different forms, such as working with Title 1 schools and providing after-school programs, or working with programs that provide services for adults with developmental disabilities.

“Really going out into our community, seeing where we feel our services could benefit the most people,” Caruso said. “And it’s really the heart of what our school is, that’s where we feel we’re doing the best work.”

When the pandemic broke out in earnest in March, the school shut down for about two weeks while the staff made plans to adapt to the suddenly digitalized environment.

“We decided to be full-remote, and we did all of our individual private lessons and individual music therapy sessions via zoom and made that transition throughout the summer,” Caruso said.

Over the summer, the school began to experiment with some level of in-person instruction, partnering with Nashua Parcs and Rec to host an outdoor, socially-distanced, family music camp.

“It was all outdoors, it was all full masks and social distancing, but it was our first experience trying to get back out into the community and re-connect with families and little ones,” Caruso said. “It was a camp really focused on little ones and making music with them and their families.”

Since September, the school has adopted the popular hybrid model of instruction — instruction in non-respiratory instruments is offered in-person, complete with masks and social distancing made possible by utilizing some of the school’s largest studio spaces.

“We redesigned the school to be as safe as possible,” Caruso said. “We’re really focusing on our largest studio spaces, making sure that the student and teacher can be at least six feet apart — in most studios it’s actually more than six feet.”

At this stage, all respiratory instruments, including singing lessons, are being held indefinitely over Zoom. The school’s music therapy sessions are approached case-by-case — some music therapy clients best prefer singing, and so those sessions are held through Zoom, but clients who prefer non-respiratory instruments or song-writing are safely accommodated in person.

“We have built up some group music therapy programs in the community that are able to happen remotely,” Caruso said. “Our head start program has grown this year to include multiple classrooms — we’ve been bringing music therapy remotely into their classrooms every week. It’s the half-hour of their week that they can look forward to.”

The school has also recently partnered with Marguerite’s Place — a transitional living program for women and children.

“It’s obviously not ideal, but we’ve been able to adapt in a way that’s been really wonderful and been able to provide so many great benefits to kids during this scary time,” Caruso said.

The school has approximately 35 teachers with a student body of between 150 and 200 students. Each teacher’s approach to Zoom lessons is slightly different — some use Zoom and nothing else, others employ audio interfaces and microphones to better their audio quality.

“Overall, we’ve definitely seen a loss in registrations,” Caruso said. “When it comes to Zoom at this point, people are tired. Their children are spending all day doing remote learning, and then the last thing they want is to spend another thirty minutes on Zoom at the end of the day, which is why we were excited to re-open, even in a limited capacity.”

Despite the opportunities offered by Zoom to continue music education safely and from home, the system is not perfect.

“Like a lot of small business in the area, it’s just so hard. People are still nervous to come in person and Zoom is not for everybody,” Caruso said. “It’s a bummer but we’re also trying to be understanding. We view ourselves as a service organization first, and not necessarily as a business. We’re trying to take a human approach to it and be as understanding as we can.”

Even as the Nashua Music School works to expand its safe in-person presence, there is a looming threat and possibility of a second closure due to rising COVID-19 numbers, a closure they feel they will be able to weather.

“If that day comes, I think that all of our teachers and our families are going to be able to adapt as best we can,” Caruso said. “But we feel pretty confident that we’d be able to do it if we had to.”
Through the struggle and the adaptation and evolution, Zoom transitions, hybrid lessons and closures, the Nashua Community Music School has found its silver lining.

“This has definitely taken a toll on the business side of things, but there are a lot of positives that have come out of this, so we’re trying to focus on that,” Caruso said. “The fact that we can offer these remote groups, the fact that we have seen such an uptick in scholarship students, to be able to provide lessons to someone who might otherwise not be able to take them has been something really good to come out of Covid.”

“We’re doing alright,” she added. “We’re still here and we’re going strong and we are trying to be as innovative as possible and think of different ways to reach the community in a time where they can really use us.”

And through the school’s evolution in the face of a world where Zoom is the norm and in-person contact must come at opposite ends of an invisible six-foot line, the passion for music and for teaching music remains absolutely untarnished.

“Music has this magic that you can’t explain,” Caruso said. “To be able to use music as this tool to work on things like communication and emotional expression, and to be able to see that music is helping them with those skills and that it can carry over even during Covid and still reach across Zoom with these kids and help maintain their quality of life or even improve their quality of life during this time, I’m just so happy that I’m able to work as the Assistant Director but still be able to work with my clients because that’s where my heart and my passion is.”