PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
Unfortunately, it seems like The Ear’s prediction on Monday is coming true.
Given the coronavirus spikes and complications of vaccine production, testing, distribution and administration, The Ear said, it looks like live concerts are likely to be canceled for the rest of this season and perhaps even for the fall of 2021.
Then yesterday the Metropolitan Opera (below) in New York City announced exactly that: It is going to cancel the whole season, and not just the fall productions, as originally planned. (You can hear general manager Peter Gelb discuss the plans for this season and the next season in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Given that the Met is the largest performing arts organization in the United States, it promises to be a Big Domino with a lot of influence and side effects.
Here is the Met story, with more quotes, details and information, from The New York Times:
Perhaps to provide some reassurance and attenuate the negative news of the decision to cancel, the Met also announced its Live in HD season for the 2021-22 season, which is based on live productions.
And if you want to know what the Met (below, from the stage) is planning to offer instead, here is a link to the Met’s own website: https://www.metopera.org.
What do you think will be the local effects of the Met decision to cancel the entire season?
Will other musical organizations follow suit, cancel the entire new season of in-person events and go safely online with virtual events?
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
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?
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
PLEASE NOTE: The following post has been updated with more information since it first appeared.
By Jacob Stockinger
In ordinary times, the yearlong schedule would be set and concerts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music would be already well underway.
But these are not ordinary times – as you can tell from the silence about the UW season that usually presents some 300 events.
It has taken time, but the music school has finally worked out the basic approach to concerts during the pandemic. It will allow worldwide listening.
Audiences will NOT be present for any Mead Witter School of Music concerts or recitals this fall. Instead, a live stream of faculty recitals and all required student recitals, many of them in the new Hamel Music Center (below), will be available.
The concert season starts tonight at 6:30 to 8 p.m. The performer is graduate student flutist Heidi Keener (below), who is giving her recital for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. The recital was postponed from March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The next events are slated for Oct. 2 with a student recital and another installment of the Pro Arte Quartet’s Beethoven cycle (below).
That other programs and dates are still missing is not surprising.
The entire UW-Madison from classes to sports, is in a state of flux about how to deal with the pandemic, with in-person classes paused through Sept. 25, and possibly longer.
Many questions about concerts remain as the process plays out.
All live-stream concerts will be free. But they will NOT be archived, so they will be taken down as soon as they end.
A donation link to the UW Foundation will be included to help cover the costs of the livestreaming and also other expenses.
Will choral concerts even take place, given that singing is especially risky because the singers can’t wear masks and social distancing is nearly impossible to provide with groups?
What about chamber music groups like the Pro Arte Quartet, the Wingra Wind Quintet and Wisconsin Brass Quintet? Many faculty members, who have to teach virtually and online right now, are no doubt concerned about the possible health risks of playing in groups.
And what about the excellent UW Symphony Orchestra, which The Ear considers a must-hear local orchestral ensemble? Those musicians too will have a hard time social distancing – unless individual safe performances at home or in a studio are edited and stitched together.
So far, though, we know that the University Opera will offer “I Wish It Were So,” an original revue of the American opera composer Marc Blitzstein on Oct. 23.
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
The annual Token Creek Chamber Music Festival normally occurs in the final weeks of summer, just before Labor Day, in the welcoming rustic comfort of the beautifully converted barn (below) located on the rural farm property of composer John Harbison and violinist Rose Mary Harbison.
With its normal concert season canceled due to Covid-19, the festival is pleased to announce an alternative for the summer almost ended.
Slightly later than usual, “MUSIC FROM THE BARN” is a two-week virtual season, a retrospective of concert compilations from 30 years of performances.
The topical programs will be released daily over the period Sept. 1–15 at 4 p.m. (CDT), and will remain posted and available to “attendees” throughout the month. From anywhere in the world, you can revisit whole programs or individual pieces.
The goal of the series has been to achieve the broadest possible representation of repertoire and artists who have graced the Token Creek stage since the series began in 1989.
To festival-goers, it will come as no surprise that the virtual season emphasizes music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, vocal music, works by artistic director John Harbison and his colleagues, and, of course, jazz.
In addition to the welcoming beauty of the barn and festival grounds, with sparkling creek and abundant gardens and woods, and the convivial intermissions at every concert, one of the features most beloved by audiences is the concert introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient and MIT professor John Harbison (below) that begins each program. Happily, these remain a feature of the virtual season as well.
Season Schedule
Tues., Sept. 1: Welcome and introduction from the artistic directors (below and in the link to the YouTube video at the bottom)
TODAY, Wed., Sept. 2: Founders Recital
Thurs., Sept. 3: Haydn Piano Trios
Fri., Sept. 4: Bach I: Concertos
Sat., Sept. 5: A Vocal Recital (I)
Sun., Sept. 6: Beethoven
Mon., Sept. 7: Contemporaries
Tues., Sept. 8: Early Modernists
Wed., Sept. 9: A Vocal Recital (II): Schubert and Schumann
Programs will be posted on Token Creek’s YouTube Channel, accessible from the festival website (https://tokencreekfestival.org), which will also host concert details: works, artists, program notes and other information.
All concerts are FREE and open to the browsing public.
In addition to the virtual concert season, the Token Creek Festival is pleased to release two new CDs.
A Life in Concert (below) features music written for Rose Mary Harbison by John Harbison, and performances of diverse music by the two of them. It includes the world premiere recordings of Harbison’s Violin Sonata No. 1 and Crane Sightings: Eclogue for Violin and Strings, inspired by frequent encounters with a pair of sandhill cranes at the Wisconsin farm.
Wicked Wit, Ingenious Imagination (below) offers four piano trios by Haydn, a beloved genre the festival has been surveying regularly since 2000. CDs will be available at the festival website by mid-September.
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
The question has weighed on The Ear ever since local groups started announcing their new concert seasons.
Will audiences – especially older and more vulnerable ones — be ready to risk venturing into crowds of 500, 1,000 or 2,000 people without an effective treatment or vaccine for global pandemic of the coronavirus (below) and the growing number of deaths from COVID-19?
Now such suspicions have been supported or even confirmed by news that the world-famous Metropolitan Opera (below), at Lincoln Center in New York City, has just canceled all of its live fall productions.
It cited concerns about the safety of both the public and the performers. And its reasoning makes sense — even though it is estimated that the Met will lose up to $100 million. It is hard or impossible in concert halls and on stages (below is a photo of the Met’s stage) to use masks and maintain social distancing.
All in all, it sounds all too familiar, similar to the reasons given for cancellations this past winter and spring, and even this summer.
Locally, it seemed like the show might go on when many groups – despite the public health crisis growing worse — went ahead and started announcing their fall seasons or even an event this summer, as in the case of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra’s Concerts on the Square, which were postponed by a month.
After all, the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson), the Madison Opera, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Wisconsin Union Theater, the Middleton Community Orchestra and the Madison Bach Musicians have all announced new seasons — as did the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. (You can hear about the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s new “Ode to Joy” season in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The UW-Madison – the biggest presenter of live concerts in the Madison area with some 300 events a year – has wisely not yet announced its concert season, let alone how it will hold lessons and classes.
The Ear suspects that more cancellations are in the making, especially when it comes to mass gatherings such as concerts, movies, plays and sports events.
Indeed, it seems like many of the groups even took possible cancellations into consideration when it came to planning programs; cutting back on expenses and staffing; and using local or regional guest artists, who might be less expensive and less difficult to cancel, rather than long-distance imported ones.
Even if a vaccine is perfected by Jan. 1, it will take a while to produce enough of it, then to administer it and then to have it take effect.
But perhaps those suspicions and speculations are overly cautious or too pessimistic.
What do you think will happen to the fall concert season?
Will going online and streaming new or past concerts once again be a substitution?
Has the pandemic changed your own habits — perhaps waiting to purchase single tickets rather than renew a season subscription? Or your plans for the fall season, perhaps even the entire season?
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
This past week, The Ear listened to and read a lot of news about COVID-19 and the arts.
And it got him thinking: What will happen this fall with the new concert season? And even later, what will a post-pandemic concert world look like? (Below is the Madison Symphony Orchestra in a photo by Peter Rodgers.)
As you may have heard, the Tanglewood Festival, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has been canceled this year. So too has the Ravinia Festival, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Locally, American Players Theatre in Spring Green also just canceled its summer season.
So far, the summer season seems to be one big cancellation for the performing arts.
True, there are some exceptions.
The Token Creek Chamber Music Festival has yet to announce its plans for August.
One also has to wonder if crowds of up to 20,000 will feel safe enough to attend the Concerts on the Square (below), now postponed until late July and August, by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra?
Will people still want to attend the postponed Handel Aria Competition on Aug. 21 in Collins Recital Hall at the UW-Madison’s new Hamel Music Center, assuming the hall is open?
Fall events seem increasingly in question.
Last night on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said that sports events and concerts will be among the last mass gatherings to take place safely, probably not until next spring or summer or even later, depending on when a vaccine becomes available.
Some public health experts also offer dire predictions about how easing up lockdown restrictions too soon might lead to an even worse second wave of the coronavirus virus pandemic this autumn and winter, despite all the happy talk and blame-shifting by Team Trump.
So, what do you think will happen beyond summer?
The Ear wonders what the fallout will be from so many music groups and opera companies turning to free online performances by solo artists, symphony orchestras and chamber music ensembles.
Will season-opening concerts be canceled or postponed? What should they be? Will you go if they are held?
Will at-home listening and viewing become more popular than before?
Will the advances that were made in using streaming and online technology (below) during the lockdown be incorporated by local groups — the UW-Madison especially comes to mind — or expected by audiences?
In short, what will concert life be like post-pandemic and especially until a vaccine is widely available and a large part of the population feels safe, especially the older at-risk audiences that attend classical music events?
Will larger groups such as symphony orchestras follow the example of the downsized Berlin Philharmonic (below, in a photo from a review by The New York Times) and play to an empty hall with a much smaller group of players, and then stream it?
Will some free streaming sites move to requiring payment as they become more popular?
Live concerts will always remain special. But will subscriptions sales decline because audiences have become more used to free online performances at home?
Will most fall concerts be canceled? Both on stage and in the audience, it seems pretty hard to maintain social distancing (below is a full concert by the Madison Symphony Orchestra). Does that mean the health of both performers – especially orchestras and choral groups – and audiences will be put in jeopardy? Will the threat of illness keep audiences away?
Even when it becomes safe to attend mass gatherings, will ticket prices fall to lure back listeners?
Will programs feature more familiar and reassuring repertoire to potential audiences who have gone for months without attending live concerts?
Will expenses be kept down and budgets cut so that less money is lost in case of cancellation? Will chamber music be more popular? (Below is the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet during its suspended Beethoven cycle.)
Will fewer players be used to hold down labor costs?
Will imported and expensive guest artists be booked less frequently so that cancellations are less complicated to do?
Will many guest artists, like much of the public, refrain from flying until it is safer and more flights are available? Will they back out of concerts?
Will all these changes leave more concert programs to be canceled or at least changed?
There are so many possibilities.
Maybe you can think of more.
And maybe you have answers, preferences or at least intuitions about some the questions asked above?
What do you think will happen during the fall and after the pandemic?
What do you intend to do?
Please leave word, with any pertinent music or news link, in the comment section.
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
ALERT: TONIGHT, March 27, at 7:30 p.m., the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra will be streaming its sold-out premiere performance (below) on Dec. 27 in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall at the UW-Madison’s new Hamel Music Center. If you couldn’t get seats for the in-person performance, you can tune in for FREE tonight.
The program is: “Poet and Peasant Overture” by Suppe; the Introduction and Allegro appassionato, Op. 92, by Robert Schumann with pianist Jason Kutz; the Overture to “Orpheus in the Underworld” by Offenbach; the “Habanera” from the opera “Carmen” by Bizet and “What a movie” from the opera “Trouble in Tahiti” by Leonard Bernstein, both with mezzo-soprano Kitt Reuter-Foss; and the Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Op. 61, by Saint-Saens with Rachel Barton Pine. WCO music director Andrew Sewell conducts.
The Ear has received the following message from artistic director Marika Fischer Hoyt (below) about the decision to make this year’s Bach Around the Clock a virtual event with a call for community submissions:
The BATC Board of Directors shares the keen disappointment that all music lovers feel at the sudden, shocking collapse of the current concert season.
The BATC 2020 Festival was fully booked, and we had looked forward to 12 hours of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by musicians ranging from young students to adult amateurs to seasoned professionals, all to celebrate the composer’s 335th birthday.
Sadly, that was not to be.
But thinking outside of the box, the Board has decided to try something new: the BATC 2020 Virtual Festival.
We invite local musicians to submit video or audio recordings of themselves singing or playing a selection by Bach. If you’d like, you can also talk at the beginning of your recording, explaining what music by Bach (below) means to you, and why you chose this particular piece. Or feel free to write your thoughts on this subject, and we’ll include that text with your recording.
We reach out especially to those who were scheduled to perform at this year’s festival, and those who have performed with us in the past. But we are very happy to include newcomers to our BATC community as well.
We request that files be of musical selections 20 minutes or less. If a piece is longer than that, please record the piece in two files.
Our tech team will preview clips for technical quality, upload them to the BATC YouTube channel, and post them on our website and then on our Facebook page, for everyone to enjoy.
BATC plans to launch the Virtual Festival this Saturday, March 28, at 10 a.m., the time the original in-person Festival was scheduled to begin.
We will add new videos every day at 10 a.m., as long as submissions keep coming in. (Below are the Suzuki Strings of Madison performing during a past BATC.)
The BATC Board hopes this Virtual Festival gives local musicians an outlet for sharing their talent and passion with the warmly appreciative local community.
Live music nourishes the soul of performer and audience member alike, and the transcendent, life-giving joy woven into the music of Bach is something we need, now more than ever. (Below is a performance from last year’s Bach Around the Clock.)
The new 2018-19 concert season has started. And the Internet makes it very easy to take out your date book and plan out what you want to attend.
If you just use Google to go to home websites, you will find lots of information about the dates and times of performances; cost of tickets; works on the program; biographies of performers; and even notes about the pieces.
That is true for all large and small presenters, including the biggest presenter of all for live classical music events: The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music. Just click on the Events Calendar when you go to http://www.music.wisc.edu
And you can also download the helpful mobile app for your smart phone that gives you what is happening today with searches possible for other months and days.
But there is something more old-fashioned that you should not forego: the printed season brochure (below).
It is 8-1/2 by 11 inches big and has 24 pages, and it features numerous color photographs. Along the right hand edge is an easy-to-use calendar of major events for the month.
It is a fun and informative read that gives you even more respect for the School of Music than you already had because it contains a lot of background and human interest stories about students, faculty members, guest artists, alumni and supporters. Editor and Concert Manager Katherine Esposito and her staff of writers and photographers have done an outstanding job.
The brochure also has a lot of news, including updates about the new Hamel Music Center that is being built on the corner of Lake Street and University Avenue and will open in 2019, and about the seat-naming, fundraising campaign ($1,500-plus) that is being used for the new performance center.
A particularly useful page (23) gives you information about ordering tickets (many have increased to $17 this year) either in advance or at the door (for the latter you are asked to show up 30 minutes early to avoid long lines); about finding parking, both free and paid; and about making special arrangements for disability access.
In larger and bolder type, the brochure tells you about stand-out special events: the 100th birthday tribute to Leonard Bernstein being held tonight (Saturday, Sept. 15) at 8 p.m. in Mills Hall; the fifth annual Brass Fest on Sept. 28 and 29; the University Opera’s production of Monteverdi’s “The Coronation of Poppea” on Nov. 16, 18 and 20; the annual Schubertiade on Jan. 27; the world premiere of a viola sonata by John Harbison on Feb. 17; the Choral Union’s joint performance with the Madison Symphony Orchestra of Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand” (Symphony No. 8) on May 3, 4 and 5; and much, much more.
In short, the brochure is an impressive publication that also provides many hours of enjoyable browsing while you educate yourself about the state of music education at the UW-Madison.
The only major shortcoming The Ear perceives is that lack of specific programs by some individuals and groups that must surely know what they are going to perform this season but apparently didn’t report it. Maybe that can be remedied, at least in part, next year.
Still, the brochure is successful and popular, which is why the UW sent out 13,000 copies – up from 8,000 last year. If you want to get one, they will be available at concerts until supplies run out. You can also order one to be mailed to you by emailing music@music.wisc.edu
Do you have the UW music brochure?
What do you think of it?
Do you find it useful? Enjoyable?
What do you suggest to improve the brochure, either by adding something or deleting something or doing it differently?
The Ear has received the following announcement from UW-Madison cellist Parry Karp (below) about the 39th Karp Family Labor Day Concert – which this year has been moved from Monday night to Tuesday night and aptly renamed as the first concert of the new season, the same purpose it has served since it began.
“On Tuesday — NOT Monday — we will perform our 39th Karp Family Opening Concert.
“Through the years we have always done our opening program the day before classes begin. For the past many years that has meant the program was on Labor Day. However this year classes start on Wednesday, so our program will be at 7:30 p.m. on this coming TUESDAY, Sept. 4, in Mills Concert Hall.
“Admission is FREE.
“Performers are: Suzanne Beia, violin; Alicia Lee, clarinet; Katrin Talbot, viola; Parry Karp, cello; Frances Karp and Christopher Karp, piano.
“The program is listed below.
“Continuing in our tradition of never repeating a piece, these are all new pieces for this series of concerts. The program includes the world premiere of Eric Nathan’s piece for Cello and Piano entitled “Missing Words III.” Some biographical information and an excerpt from a program note about the piece are below. We are very excited to play this program.”
Eric Nathan (below): “Missing Words III” for Cello and Piano (2017) in its world premiere. Here is a link to Nathan’s home website:http://www.ericnathanmusic.com
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata in F Major for Piano and Violin, Op. 24 “Spring” (1801-2), transcribed for Piano and Cello by Parry Karp
The music by Eric Nathan (b. 1983) has been called “as diverse as it is arresting” with a “constant vein of ingenuity and expressive depth” (San Francisco Chronicle), “thoughtful and inventive” (The New Yorker), and as moving “with bracing intensity and impeccable logic” (Boston Classical Review).
Nathan, a 2013 Rome Prize Fellow and 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, has garnered international acclaim.
EXCERPT FROM A PROGRAM NOTE BY ERIC NATHAN
“Missing Words III” (2017) is the third in an ongoing series of compositions composed in homage to Ben Schott’s book, Schottenfreude (Blue Rider Press/Penguin Group), a collection of newly created German words for the contemporary world.
The German language has the capability to create new words through the combination of shorter ones and can express complex concepts in a single word for which there is no direct translation in other languages. Such words include Schadenfreude, Doppelgänger and Wanderlust, and these have been adopted into use in English. With his new book, Ben Schott proposes new words missing from the English language that we can choose to adopt into our own vocabulary.”
“Missing Words III” was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, Parry and Christopher Karp (below). It follows two previous works in the “Missing Words” series, which were composed for the Berlin Philharmonic’s Scharoun Ensemble and the American Brass Quintet, respectively. (You can hear the composer and his “Missing Words” music in the YouTube video below.)
Classical music: What will the fall concert season will look like? And what will the post-pandemic concert world be like?
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
This past week, The Ear listened to and read a lot of news about COVID-19 and the arts.
And it got him thinking: What will happen this fall with the new concert season? And even later, what will a post-pandemic concert world look like? (Below is the Madison Symphony Orchestra in a photo by Peter Rodgers.)
As you may have heard, the Tanglewood Festival, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has been canceled this year. So too has the Ravinia Festival, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Locally, American Players Theatre in Spring Green also just canceled its summer season.
So far, the summer season seems to be one big cancellation for the performing arts.
True, there are some exceptions.
The Token Creek Chamber Music Festival has yet to announce its plans for August.
One also has to wonder if crowds of up to 20,000 will feel safe enough to attend the Concerts on the Square (below), now postponed until late July and August, by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra?
Will people still want to attend the postponed Handel Aria Competition on Aug. 21 in Collins Recital Hall at the UW-Madison’s new Hamel Music Center, assuming the hall is open?
Fall events seem increasingly in question.
Last night on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said that sports events and concerts will be among the last mass gatherings to take place safely, probably not until next spring or summer or even later, depending on when a vaccine becomes available.
Some public health experts also offer dire predictions about how easing up lockdown restrictions too soon might lead to an even worse second wave of the coronavirus virus pandemic this autumn and winter, despite all the happy talk and blame-shifting by Team Trump.
So, what do you think will happen beyond summer?
The Ear wonders what the fallout will be from so many music groups and opera companies turning to free online performances by solo artists, symphony orchestras and chamber music ensembles.
Will season-opening concerts be canceled or postponed? What should they be? Will you go if they are held?
Will at-home listening and viewing become more popular than before?
Will the advances that were made in using streaming and online technology (below) during the lockdown be incorporated by local groups — the UW-Madison especially comes to mind — or expected by audiences?
In short, what will concert life be like post-pandemic and especially until a vaccine is widely available and a large part of the population feels safe, especially the older at-risk audiences that attend classical music events?
Will larger groups such as symphony orchestras follow the example of the downsized Berlin Philharmonic (below, in a photo from a review by The New York Times) and play to an empty hall with a much smaller group of players, and then stream it?
Will some free streaming sites move to requiring payment as they become more popular?
Live concerts will always remain special. But will subscriptions sales decline because audiences have become more used to free online performances at home?
Will most fall concerts be canceled? Both on stage and in the audience, it seems pretty hard to maintain social distancing (below is a full concert by the Madison Symphony Orchestra). Does that mean the health of both performers – especially orchestras and choral groups – and audiences will be put in jeopardy? Will the threat of illness keep audiences away?
Even when it becomes safe to attend mass gatherings, will ticket prices fall to lure back listeners?
Will programs feature more familiar and reassuring repertoire to potential audiences who have gone for months without attending live concerts?
Will expenses be kept down and budgets cut so that less money is lost in case of cancellation? Will chamber music be more popular? (Below is the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet during its suspended Beethoven cycle.)
Will fewer players be used to hold down labor costs?
Will imported and expensive guest artists be booked less frequently so that cancellations are less complicated to do?
Will many guest artists, like much of the public, refrain from flying until it is safer and more flights are available? Will they back out of concerts?
Will all these changes leave more concert programs to be canceled or at least changed?
There are so many possibilities.
Maybe you can think of more.
And maybe you have answers, preferences or at least intuitions about some the questions asked above?
What do you think will happen during the fall and after the pandemic?
What do you intend to do?
Please leave word, with any pertinent music or news link, in the comment section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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