STÚDENTABLAÐIÐ
félagsstarfs í kórnum. „Það er erfitt að halda kórpartý í ár, en venjulega erum við með nýliðapartý, hrekkjavökupartý, skemmtum okkur líka á aðalfundunum sem eru tveir, svo erum við með árshátíð alltaf á vorin, erum með útilegu líka.“ Þá fari kórinn líka í æfingabúðir á hverri önn, þar sem ein helgi er tekin í æfingar og skemmtun. ÞAÐ ERU ERFIÐIR TÍMAR... Covid-19 faraldurinn hefur haft víðtæk áhrif í samfélaginu og þar eru kórar landsins ekki undanskildir. Einhverjir þeirra hafa fellt niður tónleika og æfingar, þá oft vegna hás aldurs meðlima. Hvernig er staðan hjá hinum unga Háskólakór? „Í vor, þegar þetta byrjaði, þá þurftum við að fella niður allar æfingar. Svo þegar ástandið róaðist gátum við verið með nokkrar æfingar fyrir útskriftina [í júní sl.] og sungum svo þar. Við vorum með plan um að fara til Skotlands um sumarið en þar fór allt niður,“ segir Greipur. Kórinn hefur prófað að æfa hverja rödd fyrir sig en Greipur hefur líka skipt kórnum upp í tvo litla kóra „þar sem ég er t.d. búinn að tengja saman fjölskyldumeðlimi, fólk sem býr saman, fólk sem er í sambandi, til að minnka líkur á krosssmitum.“ Að lokum spurði ég Greip út í plön kórsins á næstunni, en eins og við mátti búast voru þau óljós. „Við færðum hugmyndina að halda stóra tónleika á haustönn fram í lok vors, en við verðum bara að sjá hvort það gangi upp eða ekki. Í staðinn ætluðum við að reyna að taka eitthvað upp núna að hausti. Svo getur alltaf gerst að fólk fer að smitast inni og þá erum við komin í einangrun.“
Meira um Háskólakórinn má finna á vefsíðunni kor.hi.is, en einnig á Facebook, Instagram og svo má hlusta á hann á Spotify.
members. What about the University Choir, with its much younger membership? “When the pandemic started in the spring, we had to cancel all our practices. When things calmed down, we were able to have a few more practices before graduation in June, and then sang at the ceremony. We had been planning a trip to Scotland over the summer, which was of course cancelled as well.” Recently, the board has tried to split the choir into separate vocal sections for some practices, with Greipur additionally splitting the groups up into two smaller, blended choirs, “where, for example, I’ve grouped family members, people who live together, couples, and so on, in order to reduce the risk of cross-contamination.” Finally, I asked Greipur about the choir’s plans for the near future, but as expected, they are unclear. “We postponed our plans for a big concert in the fall semester until the end of spring, but we’ll just have to see if it works out or not. We thought about trying to record something this fall instead. Then it could always happen that someone in the group gets infected and we have to go into isolation.” You can learn more about the University Choir at kor.hi.is, as well as on Facebook and Instagram. You can also stream the choir’s music on Spotify.
Zooming in: ARTICLE Kevin Niezen Contributed photos
Teaching in the Times of Covid-19
When you think of a world turned upside-down, the first images that might pop into your mind are economic crises, natural disasters, violent protests, and perhaps the looming deadline of a final paper. Of all these possible end-of-your-world scenarios, a deadly pandemic caused by a microscopic agent of Hell appears almost unthinkable. Yet, here we are. It has taken the internet fifty years to alter the state of our reality; it took Albert Einstein ten years to discover the theory of relativity and to warp space and time for the entire human race; and it took the Beatles eight years of hard day’s nights, yellow submarines, and twists and shouts to dramatically redefine the reality of our culture; alarmingly, although quite impressively, it took the coronavirus a single month
to accomplish all of the above, and more. To restrain the coronavirus from expanding faster than Will Ferrel’s Húsavík song, universities in Iceland have implemented a Covid-19 response strategy based on the Chief Epidemiologist’s safety guidelines and regulations. The result has been that the majority of teaching is being conducted online through an arrangement of virtual discussions and pre-recorded lectures. As expected, this has brought forth a rising case of people wearing their pajamas more often, or talking about their cats (and, why not, the present state of their plants), or their children making a cameo appearance as surprising as Bill Murray in Zombieland (SPOILER ALERT). But if you thought these were obstacles of
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