Students hit the right chord with online concert

BELLARINE Secondary College’s budding musicians were given a welcome chance to perform in front of a crowd, albeit a digital one, as part of the school’s Couch Concert.

For the past couple of weeks, the school has been streaming performances from its Year 12 VET Music students on Facebook Live. This served as an alternative for the usual live performances the students would be assessed on.

The performances drew plenty of listeners both when they were being live-streamed and when the videos were uploaded to the school’s Facebook page afterward, with some receiving more than 1,000 views.

Bellarine Secondary College music director Steve McEwan said the success of the concert was particularly welcomed given the difficulty COVID-19 has presented students.

“Because we have a regular gig for the Brewhouse in Queenscliff, the students have usually done six or seven gigs by this time of year but they haven’t done any because of lockdown,” he said.

“They also need to do them for assessment, so we came up with the idea of doing an online Couch Concert, which was the name the kids came up with.”

Mr McEwan said there was a lot of extra preparation due to COVID-19.

“We had to get names of everyone who came for contact tracing, all the singers had to have their own microphones, so we made sure we had enough to go around, we had to set up the stage so there was social distancing, and we had to learn how to use Facebook Live.”

Despite these challenges, Mr McEwan said the concert was invaluable to students.

“It gave students something to look forward to because they have lost a lot this year. We haven’t gone on camps, we haven’t been able to engage with the music industry as we normally do, and they haven’t been able to do their regular performances in the community. So, to be able to do this and put it out in the community has been great,” he said.

“It shows their resilience. That’s what has really impressed me, their attitude of ‘well, this is just how it is and what we’ve got to do,’ and they did it to the best of their ability and put on a really good show. It was great to watch.”

The school’s VET Music students will be performing in another live-streamed concert beginning on October 11.

This time the event will be held in the Potato Shed. Professional from Bellarine AV will help with the filming and the sound.

Mr McEwan said this would be of great benefit to students as it would give them “a really high-quality production video to take home.”