Meet Ashlen Harris, the Education Programs Intern at PCM. Ashlen is currently attending California Institute of the Arts studying Stage Management in the Theater school and plans on graduating in 2024.

When the pandemic closed the PCM campus in March 2020, the first three quarters of the school year were already in the books. Most of the year’s lessons, recitals, and events that made up daily life on campus happened as they were intended -- live and in person. The disruption that the shutdown had on PCM (and the world) early on was substantial, but at the time, the hope was that the pivot to distance learning and remote everything was a matter of finishing the school year strong and, for a brief period of time, keeping our community connected and engaged until the pandemic passed. However, as fall 2020 approached it became clear that what we had all hoped was a sprint was, in reality, a marathon. We were about to embark on an unprecedented full school year of remote learning.

On Thursday, October 28, longtime PCM board member Olin Barrett passed away at the age of 83. Olin helped alter the landscape of our school from a small grassroots organization to a nationally-recognized community music school and had an outsized impact on the thousands of students who have enrolled at PCM, and the faculty, staff, and board members who work here.

Meet Yetunde Shekoni, Development and Marketing Intern at PCM. Yetunde is currently attending University of California, Los Angeles studying Ethnomusicology and plans on graduating in 2023.