The Unprecedented Summer of 2020
Before the pandemic, I often took Toronto’s rich cultural life for granted. It never occurred to me that one day all live performances would stop, that galleries, festivals and concert halls would shut down. The last concert I saw before the city went into lockdown was a recital at Koerner Hall in early March by the French pianist Hélène Grimaud. It was a wonderful afternoon. But did I appreciate it as much as I should have? Probably not. Now all the concert halls are dark and the city is full of unemployed dancers, musicians and actors.
Throughout the pandemic, artists have found amazing ways to express themselves online, editing together clips recorded in different locations: symphony musicians playing together, choirs singing in harmony, comedians cracking jokes back and forth. Dancers from the National Ballet of Canada created a powerful series of living-room performances called “Dancing in Isolation.” These pandemic-era pieces have provided cathartic, much-needed occasions for tears and laughter. But watching them is not the same as gathering as a group, in real life, to collectively experience art. And if ever we needed art to raise our spirits, help us understand the moment we’re living through and remind us of the beauty of the world, it’s now.
By mid-May, I was craving the sound of live music and decided to do something about it. Musicians had been giving impromptu concerts on their porches, and I wondered if I could set something up for my family and a few neighbours. I contacted a viola player who runs a small music start-up with his wife called Pocket Concerts, which connects musicians with private hosts. I asked him if he’d be willing to perform on my porch and he said yes.
A couple of weeks later, on a beautiful Sunday morning, he rode his bike to my house and played the first unaccompanied Bach cello suite, arranged for viola. The audience was small. To avoid a crowd, I invited just a few neighbours from the block to listen. We all stood at a distance from each other. And yet it
turned out to be one of the best concerts of my life: it was intimate and uplifting and a joy to hear live music again. One neighbour loved it so much she arranged for a concert two weeks later with a violinist and her cellist daughter.
This summer, we’re all going to have to get creative to experience art. In one of the parks near my house, 20-somethings gather at night to twirl glow sticks, Burning Man–style. In another nearby park, a comedian occasionally shows up with a microphone, an amp and portable floodlights and puts on his own standup routine. He’s not the world’s funniest comedian, but the audience, sitting responsibly apart from each other, laugh like crazy. In Stratford, actors are doing monologues in their driveways. The AGO and the ROM are reopening, which is welcome news, but it’s going to be a while before we pack into concert halls again. In the meantime, art will flourish in unlikely places.
In this month’s cover package, “Socially Distanced Fun in the Sun” (page 35), we’ve collected a bunch of ideas for how to enjoy this summer, despite the restrictions. We have suggestions for the best pre-packed picnic baskets, outdoor patios, laneway drag shows, drive-in theatres and yes, porch concerts, which I highly recommend. After surviving the long, anxious spring, Torontonians, I hope, will get to feel a little joy.
—Sarah Fulford Email: editor@torontolife.com Twitter: @sarah_ fulford