Uncertain Times: Music is a Mirror of Humanity

April 13, 2020 In: Sound Bits

Originally from Boston, my recent relocation to Philadelphia has exposed me to the vibrant arts culture in the city. As a conductor, I have particularly enjoyed the opportunities to see Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin interact and create with the members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. While I have enjoyed watching endless videos of the orchestra and their conductor over the last month, I long to be seated in Verizon Hall watching, hearing, and feeling the orchestra’s performances.

On Saturday, The Philadelphia Inquirer music critic, Peter Dobrin, published a column After this bizarre intermission, the world’s orchestras — and its chamber ensembles and choirs — will matter even more. Here’s why. Dobrin beings by highlighting the relationship between classical music and the human condition: “Orchestral concerts in particular are a kind of mirror of humanity. Right now, that means contagion. When this bizarre intermission is over, though, orchestras are poised to be more deeply affecting than ever. Listeners are parched.” Dobrin goes on to highlight how the current crisis has shaped our listening and might provide new relevance and meaning to repertoire. I couldn’t agree more. As part of the transition to online-learning, I have started curating weekly Spotify listening playlists for the student ensembles I conduct (why haven’t I always done this?). Each carefully selected piece immediately engages, consciously or subconsciously, with the current situation. Last week, John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music was meant to take the students away—an opportunity to remove from the current situation, while Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps reminded us of the beauty of the season.

While Dobrin highlights and applauds the work that musicians are currently doing to share their art, he is smart to highlight what is lost: 

But when individual orchestral players go online, it doesn’t check off all the boxes. Yes, dozens of ensembles are stocked with wonderful instrumentalists. The value of an orchestra, though, is in the collective: the homogenous blending of single voices into a common one, the mysterious way the ensemble can suddenly turn like a school of fish.

And then, of course, there is the impact of all that sound coming at you. Nothing at home is a proxy for what you feel in a concert hall. Nothing at home could ever be as intense. But that requires crowds, on stage and out in the hall.

If anything, the last month has vividly reminded us what is able to occur digitally and what requires in-person human interaction. While certain things have transferred, and possibly been improved by our shift to an online eco-system of teaching and performing, there are certain things that have been lost. In the conducting class I teach, in place of conducting the class-ensemble, students now video record themselves singing through scores while conducting. The focus this places on students to develop vivid, specific, and accurate aural representations of the music has been transformative for some students. However, students have lost the ability to interact with an in-person ensemble and receive real-time feedback from their peers through performance. As I look to the future and our return to in-person teaching and learning, I will be eager to incorporate video recording as a preparatory requirement to stepping on the podium, while at the same point never taking for granted the privilege to step on a podium and create art with an in-person ensemble.

Like many, the virtual ‘band-aids’ in the current situation have mostly served to highlight what is not transferable in our art-for: in-person human interaction and collaborative music making. When we emerge from this crisis, to innovate, to have an impact, and to be relevant, may very well mean to invest passionately and fiercely in what was lost during our online-era; to take what is truly sacred in our art form, and celebrate it. As musicians, my hope is that we will emerge from this period with clarity and affirmation about what defines our art and what our role is in the modern world. 

Read all of Peter Dobrin’s article here: