Virtual Performance by the Symphony of West Morris Regional HSD

CHESTER, NJ: The WMR Symphony musicians continue to make music together during the ongoing pandemic. While traditional rehearsals and concerts are unable to take place, the musicians are perfecting other skills that allow them to create virtual performances. Since January 2021, the musicians and their director, Ms. Jennifer Meckler, have worked to produce a virtual performance of selections from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. Please enjoy their performance on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BuLvaSc0zNM.

The WMR Symphony is an auditioned after-school music ensemble at the West Morris Regional High School District that brings the district’s two high schools together. It is an ensemble of 50 students from both Central and Mendham High Schools that rehearses weekly.

The WMR Symphony combines woodwind, brass, percussion, and string instruments. The WMR Symphony is the same instrumentation as professional orchestras, such as the New York Philharmonic or Philadelphia Orchestra. Students apply skills they are learning in their school-day band and orchestra courses to this ensemble, while also building community and musicianship.

In order to create a virtual performance, students individually listen to a professional recording of the piece in headphones, and audio-record themselves playing along on their instrument. All musicians play along to the same recording in order to unite their tempo, style, and intonation. Students send their individual audio-recorded sound to their director, Ms. Jennifer Meckler, and she uses the computer program “GarageBand” to layer the individual recordings into a group sound. Ms. Meckler trades her usual conducting baton for audio engineer tools in order to digitally blend the individual recordings and then create a video for YouTube.

Ms. Jennifer Meckler is the founder and director of the WMR Symphony. Ms. Meckler has been teaching in the WMRHS District since the fall of 2015. Ms. Meckler’s master’s thesis (William Paterson University, degree in Music Education), studies high school symphony ensembles in the public schools. The thesis can be viewed on her professional website: www.JenniferMeckler.info.

Future virtual (and eventually in-person) performances of the WMR Symphony will be posted on the YouTube Channel: “West Morris Regional Orchestras & Symphony.” Please subscribe!