Hi! My name is Ida. I am a conductor, composer, arranger, voice teacher and performer based in Helsinki, Finland. During a normal work week, my teaching consists of rehearsals with my two choirs one evening each, teaching singing students and vocal groups as well as having single workshops and coachings with different clients. A lot of the work I do is independent and pretty solemn, so the full set of engagements differs quite a lot from f. ex. a full-time school teachers'. We Finns are currently about a week into a distance situation where we aren't quarantined (yet), but very strongly adviced to avoid all contact with other people in order to prevent the COVID-19 from spreading. So, as the ones of us fortunate enough to have a job that could mould into new formats, I have needed to come up with creative ways of re-organizing it to fit the needs of this time.
I started this blog in order to have a designated space for reflection, insight and tracking the process that is learning work with choirs, ensembles and single students online. Also, having seen what a great demand there is for sharing of knowledge and ideas, I hope that the information could come in handy for those of you who are in a similar situation.
I am by no means an expert of the topic, but I have a lot of optimism regarding its' possibilities. The basis I am building upon is my experiences of distance studies that I got during my master studies in vocal leadership at the Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Denmark. I hope you enjoy what perhaps could be called the ride. Let's get going.