Thousands of dance teachers have started teaching online in the midst of COVID-19, but in academia, professors face many additional restraints. At Boston Conservatory at Berklee, faculty members can upload videos—including their own choreography—to a private YouTube channel and the communicate with students through Google Hangouts.

While on her way home from Boston to Florida, Boston Conservatory senior Shelbie Rassler (B.M. '20, composition) had the idea to organize a virtual orchestra with 74 classmates. Students from Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee formed a virtual orchestra to perform a touching remake of Burt Bacharach's 1960s classic song "What the World Needs Now is Love."

You need to watch this incredible video, made by a Berklee student, of a “virtual orchestra” performing Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now.” We can thank Shelbie Rassler (B.M. '20, composition), a Boston Conservatory at Berklee student majoring in composition, for getting 70 of her peers to contribute their talents while socially distancing from one another after their time in school together came to an abrupt end.

Alumnus Gus Solomons Jr. (B.F.A. '60, dance) talks to Dance Magazine about how he has sustained a lifelong career in dance.