GRANBY — It’s been six years since all of Granby’s East Meadow School students graced the stage to perform choral and instrumental music for their community, but the spotlight will soon shine on their faces once again.

On Thursday at 6 p.m., students in kindergarten through third grade will sing a selection of songs, either two full songs or four song segments, for their friends and family. The following evening, the older cohort of students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades will perform a selection of choral music and join the junior high school band for a selection of songs. The event is free for all to attend. Bombyx Center of the Arts has donated microphones for the show.

“It’s definitely going to be a big learning experience, and I think, a very joyful one,” East Meadow Choral Director Will Lynch said.

Granby’s small but mighty music program collapsed during the pandemic: of all the students who performed at the last music concert in 2019, only two have continued to play their instruments at Granby Junior Senior High School.

Bob Castellano, director of music for the district and retired music director in Amherst and Pelham for 32 years, said the departure of the music directors, combined with the social isolation during the pandemic, hindered student’s interest in music.

“Doing instrumental music, particularly winds, was impossible. It was like choral programs. One person had the disease and someone spread it and they lost half their choir,” Castellano said. “If the kids don’t see a band, and you can’t explain what it is to them, the culture of music just dissolves.”

After students returned to classes in person, East Meadow’s administration struggled to find a replacement music teacher, often placing a teacher or paraprofessional with no formal music training in the classroom. While Lynch acknowledges the efforts of Principal Lisa Desjarlais and Brad Rosenberg to preserve the designated music classroom, it was clear on his first day in September 2024 that even the foundations of the music program were gone.

“The older students who are here are very unused to music class, as in terms of singing, playing instruments and dancing, which I consider kind of the basics,” Lynch said. “A big piece of my job this past year is to just sort of reintroduce these basic things of, just like you draw and paint in art class, just like you run and throw balls in gym class, you sing and dance and play instruments here in music class.”

While the classroom remained, the other key piece of a strong music program, performance, no longer existed, Lynch said. This first concert is optional but strongly encouraged for students rather than mandatory as a way to gently demonstrate how “performance and creativity can be a positive force in their own lives, and how it can contribute to bright, self actualized, awesome future,” Lynch said.

Determined to rebuild the program, Lynch and Castellano decided on a coheseive curriculum approach to lay the foundation for a new program. Everyone, Lynch said, started with keeping a steady beat, matching pitch and basic singing patterns. Castellano visited the elementary school students in the afternoons with recorders and rhythm games to bridge the classroom music and instrumental music.

With the older elementary students, Lynch leans into music history and popular culture, turning a more abstract concept of music into something familiar. Castellano, meanwhile, offers small group lessons. Sometimes, students venture across the parking lot to play with the junior high school band.

“The fourth graders had never played in an ensemble before, but they really got tuned in and said, ‘Wow, this is great. It’s loud!’” Castellano said. “They realized it was supportive. They said, ‘Well, I hear other people playing my part, so I know where I’m at.’”

Despite hesitation from some students, the response to the new music program has been overwhelmingly positive, Lynch said. His informal estimate suggests a majority of each grade opted into the concert. Castellano said he has 48 students in the program, plus 11 in the junior high school band.

“You’re not training musicians, you’re training music consumers,” Castellano said. “They’re going to go to concerts. They’re going to buy recordings and become parents and have their children take lessons. So it’s trying to develop that culture.”

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.