The Well-Tempered Ear
Looks like there will be no live concerts for the rest of the 2020-21 season and maybe until early 2022
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By Jacob Stockinger
Some important things for classical music fans to know happened over the weekend, even as Dane County continues to break records for new cases of coronavirus.
Three high federal health officials, including director of the CDC Dr. Robert Redfield and his colleague Dr. Anthony Fauci, have testified that it is highly unlikely that vaccines for the coronavirus will be widely available to the public until May 2021 at the earliest and may well be delayed until early 2022 or later.
President Donald Trump says they are wrong, but the public health officials are standing by their estimates.
Adding to the concern is that the rate of people who say they will not get the hurried vaccine continues to rise from 35 percent to 50 percent or more.
In addition, there are reports of logistical problems because the vaccines will be difficult to distribute as they require cold temperatures.
This amounts to bad news for a long list of local arts presenters.
The net effect is that mass gatherings – such as concerts – will not be safe to attend for the rest of this season and perhaps until the beginning of 2022.
That means that many groups that have planned on reopening by January or February are likely to cancel or postpone events for the remainder of this season, and perhaps also for next fall – just as they planned for doing this concert season.
Instead there will probably be more virtual and online events substituted for in-person events — if anything at all is offered.
Among the major groups who have announced earlier reopening and be affected by the new deadlines are: the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below top); the Madison Opera; the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below bottom, in a photo by Mike Gorski); the Wisconsin Union Theater; the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music; the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO); and the Middleton Community Orchestra.
We can all hope that live music starts happening sooner. But The Ear suspects that alternative plans are already being drawn up and will be announced shortly.
What do you think about the estimates of the delays in vaccine accessibility and acceptance?
What do you think music groups will do – or should do in –in the wake of the public health crisis?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: During flu season, should concert halls pass out surgery masks?
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By Jacob Stockinger
It is happening more and more frequently these days, it seems to The Ear.
You see them offered as a helpful courtesy in hospitals and clinics, in the offices of doctors and dentists.
I am talking about those disposable surgical masks that hook around the ears and cover the nose and mouth, and are intended to help cut down on the risks of spreading contagious and infectious diseases.
This time of the year, they are especially meant to reduce illnesses like the flu, which is now starting to spike around the U.S., according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that was broadcast on Fox News.
So as the weekend approaches and the 2013-2014 concert season picks up again after the holidays and the usual winter intermission, The Ear find himself asking: Should those masks be offered at concerts – perhaps even for a small fee if they are expensive? After all, some venues already offer free cough drops.
You can could use the mask protect yourself if you are well, or else to protect others if you are sick. Big audiences, after all, can be like one big hospital ward or Petri dish. And as one bog suggested, they might even have a logo printed on them as a promotion or marketing tool if you use them away form the concert hall.
And the audiences for classical music are generally older — which also means they have weaker immune systems and generally a greater susceptibility to serious effects of the flu and other illnesses. Next time you are in one in January and February, just listen for the hacking and sneezing and blowing of noses. Those can be more than annoyances.
Offering masks would be good for public health, and it might also help reduce the annoyance of coughing, a topic I posted about yesterday in the following link:
You see those masks used everywhere in Asian culture. But our own culture seems to see them as ugly and stigmatizing rather than as a sign of respect for other people’s health and a contribution to protecting the general public’s health. (Also look at the YouTube video at the bottom about wearing surgical masks in Japan.)
It turns out that The Ear is not the only one with this on his mind.
The incredible British pianist Stephen Hough – who has performed several times in Madison — also posted something recently on his blog for the Telegraph newspaper about using surgical masks – perhaps to protect his own health as he tours around the world playing recitals, concertos and chamber music.
Here is a link to his thoughtful essay. Be sure to read the readers’ comments and reactions.
And be sure to leave your own reactions to the idea in the COMMENT section of this blog.
Tags: Centers for Disease Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Classical music, concert hall, Daily Telegraph, dentist, Disease, doctor, February, flu, flu season, Fox News, Health, Hospital, Infectious disease, influenza, Influenza vaccine, Jacob Stockinger, Japan, Piano, Public health, Stephen Hough, surgery, surgical mask, United States, YouTube
Classical music: How do the flu and classical music mix? What can be done now that the flu season is peaking here and in the concert hall. How should musicians and presenters deal with a sick and coughing audience?
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By Jacob Stockinger
As I remarked in blog posts of the past three days, the winter intermission is coming to an end with a recital at Arbco housing by the Madison-based Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Kitt Reuter-Foss, with a concert this coming Friday by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and with performances of Medieval and Renaissance English music by Eliza’s Toyes on Saturday and Sunday .
So it is undeniable: The second half of the concert season is picking up.
So, unfortunately, is the flu season, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.
Here is a link to a report on NBC-TV about how many states gave started to report serious cases of flu, including deaths, in the majority of states. And there is no sign of a let up. In fact, predictions are for it to get worse — including right here in Wisconsin.
http://www.nbc-2.com/story/24417052/flu-season-may-be-heading-toward-peak#.UtLEoXmKMds
So when you add in a major spike in flu cases to public events held in public spaces — like, say, concerts – you have a volatile and even dangerous risky mix.
Even in healthy times, The Ear finds it bad enough to sit next or near a chronic cougher — whether from allergies, sinus problems or illness — who simply will not leave the hall to hack but prefers instead to fight it out in the hall and ruin much of the music for others.
But right now those same people are not just annoying. They pose public health risks.
One obvious solution is for people who feel ill to stay home. PLEASE. But that may be hard to do when you pay out big money for tickets and don’t want to lose out on the investment or the beauty of the music.
Some presenters offer free cough drops, which some audience members love to unwrap during the slow movement. But a lot of listeners apparently don’t avail themselves of them — or of taking cough medicine before the concert and during intermission.
Perhaps the YouTube video at the bottom about how to use how you breathe to stop coughing can help.
It might also be good if more performing arts organizations offered rebates or switches on tickets for people who need to cancel to protect their own health and the health of others – including, let us not forget, the musicians or performers themselves.
I wonder how realistic that solution is and how many presenters do offer or would offer such a deal for th eska elf public health. If they don’t, they should.
Recently, The New York Times ran a combined story-column, part humorous and self-deprecating and part serious, by Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim about how musicians deal with coughing. Her examples included famous conductors (such as Michael Tilson Thomas, below top, when he conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and instrumentalists (including pianist Andras Schiff, below bottom in a photo by Robert Torres, when he performed a monster concert of Johann Sebastian Bach‘s “Goldberg” Variations and Ludwig van Beethoven‘s “Diabelli” Variations back-to-back in Boston and then went on to play an encore) dealt with coughers in the audience.
I remember a concert years ago at the Wisconsin Union Theater during which pianist Alfred Brendel suddenly stopped playing and chastised the audience for spoiling his music with coughing and noise. He then started over again and – miracle of miracles – the audience was indeed quieter.
If many coughers can keep quiet when asked, why can’t they do so on their own? Silence is part of good concert etiquette.
Anyway here is the amusing yet totally serious Times story about how the performers themselves deal with coughing audiences:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/arts/music/maestro-at-work-hold-that-cough.html
Is there more than can be done?
One world-famous musician thinks so.
And so does The Ear.
Tune in tomorrow.
Tags: András Schiff, Beethoven, Boston, Centers for Disease Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Classical music, coughing, flu, flu season, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Kitt Reuter-Foss, Madison, Metropolitan Opera, Michael Tilson Thomas, NBC, New York Times, Piano, Simon Rattle, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Wisconsin Union Theater, YouTube
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