Director’s Article: Reflecting on five years since COVID!
This week marks five years since the COVID-19 epidemic started. Many of our very young students don’t remember it, but for most of the adults, it still seems like yesterday.
At Brighter Minds Music we had just opened our doors at our new Mendota Heights location in December 2019. Just three months later we closed our doors for in-person lessons. What a shock to have an amazing opening and then have to shut the doors.
However, in one weekend, five years ago, we moved from 100% in-person lessons to 100% online lessons. Thanks to our amazing community, we were able to continue to offer music lessons remotely. People were able to join us who hadn’t before, and we found out that some people didn’t have instruments at home (!) [p.s. you need your own instrument at home for music lessons.
Many people thanked us for making online music lessons available, so students had some stability during that time. We were also grateful that people continued to take lessons with us, continuing their music education and supporting our small, but growing business.
Due to parent requests, we also restarted our popular early childhood music classes online - families with toddlers and preschoolers were grateful to have an activity to look forward to. We still continue our early childhood music classes today.
We had online recitals where students could invite family members from around the world. We still continue to offer them today.
We had students join us who normally wouldn’t be able to take in-person lessons - we had students from other states and also some from other countries!
Some students enjoyed online lessons so much that they still continue with online lessons, 5 years later. We continue to offer online and hybrid lessons for students who prefer that option.
Thank you for sharing the joy of making music during the pandemic and referring your friends to Brighter Minds Music.
We appreciate you!
Emily Ireland
Owner, Director
Brighter Minds Music