The Covid-19 has presented the world with many challenges in terms of healthcare and safety. It has impacted all areas of our lives, including education. With the Ontario Ministry of Education implementing online schooling, all teachers have had to adapt but there are exceptional challenges for the music teacher. Mandatory synchronous classes are never truly synchronous for the music teacher as internet lag means that students can never perform together in real time. Combine this with the fact that video conferencing software does not capture the true tone quality of the instrument and often cuts out on instruments because it considers it to be “background noise” and you have many significant challenges. ERADICATION embraces all these challenges and issues in a piece that captures the mood and feel of what is happening now—with the hope that it will all soon be over with the introduction of a vaccine. Students interpret a graphic score and all the messiness of the background noises, computer glitches, echoes, and filtered sounds become part of the piece, capturing a slice of life during the pandemic.
