In the News: KQED spotlights CCM Prep’s online summer arts offerings

UC College-Conservatory of Music’s Preparatory and Community Engagement (CCM Prep) area is featured in a news story about how high school summer theatre programs moved online during the pandemic. The story is available to read online and was published by MindShift, a podcast on non-profit NPR/PBS member station KQED.

CCM Prep cancelled all of its in-person summer programs and moved many of its offerings online, including online drop-in ballet classes, private lessons and the High School Immersion Musical Theatre Workshop.

Students in the musical theatre workshop work with guest faculty from Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theaters through the online sessions — an opportunity that may not have been possible if the workshop was only offered in-person. Guest faculty includes CCM alumni Max Clayton, Richard Oberacker, Max Chernin, Samantha Pollino, Kearran Giovanni, Aaron Lazar and more. Enrollment for the workshop filled up in just a few days.

Learn more about CCM Prep’s summer 2020 online offerings.

“These aren’t your typical online classes,” CCM Prep Director Anne Cushing-Reid told MindShift. “They’re designed to get students out of their seats and onto their at-home ‘dance floors’ or ‘music studios’—whether that is their living room, driveway or bedroom.”

Read the full story online.

Feature image at the top: CCM High School Immersion Musical Theatre students participate in a performance at a previous Year End Festival. Photo/Joseph Fuqua II/UC Creative Services.