My Summer Internship: Pandemic Style

by Hannah Pearson

Early this February, I found out that I’d be doing a summer internship with Fifth House Ensemble during Fresh Inc Festival. For five weeks, I’d get a behind-the-scenes look at how one of the most groundbreaking contemporary chamber ensembles worked together to host and produce a music festival centered around supporting young artists.

I was so excited- I could already see myself driving from Rochester to Chicago for the summer, running around the city doing fancy internship things (a fantasy that was a little unrealistic given that the festival actually takes place in Kenosha, WI, but stay with me here). This internship was the final step standing between me and a master’s degree in Music Leadership, and I couldn’t wait to get started.

Fast forward a month later, and then...a little thing called “Covid-19” happened. Suddenly, everything was canceled: in-person classes, my employment as a box office associate, that graduate student wine night that I’d really been looking forward to. I was sure that my internship would be canceled too- what kind of music organization would be capable of hosting a summer music festival in the face of so much uncertainty? 

Luckily for me, Fifth House took on the pandemic with a level of resourcefulness that I never expected. Since holding the festival in-person wasn’t an option, Fifth House redesigned the entire festival experience into one that was 100% virtual. As long as I had a computer and a strong internet connection, I could also still have a summer internship. 

Taking on an internship in the middle of a global pandemic is a humbling experience. In addition to learning how to work remotely to complete tasks that were entirely new to me (like being responsible for creating the virtual rehearsal schedule for the entire festival and sending so many emails that Google literally thought I was a robot), there was always the threat of mild existential doom that sometimes came out in between tasks, occasionally sending me spiraling over questions like What does the pandemic mean for the music organizations I want to work for? Will I be able to find a job after graduation? And, more immediately, Will I get sick if I go to the grocery store today? 

One of the ways the MAML degree program distinguishes this particular internship program as a “Capstone Internship” is by requiring the intern (me) and intern host (Melissa) to create a project for the intern (again, me) to work on through the duration of the internship. Melissa and I decided that the Fresh Inc social experience would be a great topic for my project. We both agreed on the importance of creating relationships during a summer music festival: gathering during lunch hours, taking breaks between rehearsals, celebrating after concerts. How could I create a typical “summer music festival” social experience with everyone sitting in front of their computers hundreds of miles apart? 

I was excited for the project- fostering human connection through music is one of those topics that makes me TICK (and is pretty much the reason I decided to switch from a doctorate in clarinet performance to a master’s degree in music leadership, but that’s a story for a different day). My first chance to design a social experience came in the form of the annual Fresh Inc S’mores Kickoff Night: normally a physical, outdoor s’mores bonfire activity held outside the night before the first day of the festival that gives festival participants the chance to get to know each other before the festival starts.

For the kickoff night event this year (held over Zoom instead of around an actual fire), I decided to stick with the S’mores tradition, but make it virtual. I encouraged all of the festival participants to come up with their most creative s’mores recipes so that we could have a s’mores contest, and came up with ice-breaker activities to use in Zoom breakout rooms. To make sure I was prepared, I went into full academic presentation mode and made an agenda that broke down the two-hour event minute-by-minute. It was part of my capstone project, after all! I needed everything to go flawlessly. 

After spending the hours leading up to the kickoff night rehearsing my talking points, googling “how to create Zoom breakout rooms, and going over my agenda for the night (and also rearranging my desk in my bedroom to make sure I had an optimal Zoom background), I felt ready. I logged onto Zoom, ready to basically give a social presentation to the sixty other people on the Zoom call. 

Have you ever gone to a party only to realize that you’re wayyyy overdressed? This is basically what happened to me during the kickoff s’mores night. After spending hours creating a detailed “social itinerary,” I realized that the folks on the call didn’t need multiple icebreakers or critical thinking scenarios designed to facilitate conversation- they just needed the space and the opportunity to connect with each other. My attempt to control the dialogue for the night was turning the space into one that was too rigid and also kind of lame. After briefly feeling like the uncool kid trying to sit with the popular kids at lunch, I regrouped, acknowledged to everyone on the call that maybe I had over prepared just a little, and surrendered my control. That’s when the magic happened. By the end of the night, everyone was posting pictures of their s’mores onto the Fresh Inc Discord server and just sharing conversation in a way that felt natural, almost like the in-person festival experience that I’d been trying so hard to create. 

Just like my experience during the first Kickoff night of the festival, my internship with Fifth House taught me that the end result of the work as I do as a leader isn’t about me -  it’s about using music as a means to foster connections between others. And, like many leaders who came before me, it just took a little stumbling and a little overplanning to figure this out. 

Thank you, Hannah! We loved having you this summer, despite the unusual circumstances. We can’t wait to see what you do next :)