2020 MORE CONFOUNDING THAN CLASSIC
Year started on a roll — and then the pandemic hit
How did Vancouver's music community deal with the fears and frustrations of the most challenging year in living memory?
The first weeks of 2020 get overlooked, a brief period of business as usual.
Un-suk Chin's Violin Concerto stole the show at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra's New Music Festival in January. Vancouver Opera mounted an amusing Barber of Seville in February featuring engaging baritone Edward Nelson, who then went on to win the international Glyndebourne Opera Cup. In March, Elektra Women's Choir offered an eye-opening program devoted to works composed by Italian women of the baroque era.
There was even an international scandal. Pianist Yuja Wang was treated shockingly as she entered the country at YVR — detained and questioned for over an hour by security and customs officials. Though very, very upset, she still delivered a remarkable program at the Chan Centre hours later, then went public about what had transpired.
In mid-March, of course, everything changed.
At first it was a depressing matter of not who would cancel, but when and for how long.
Organizations reliant on travel were hit at once, since performers could no longer jet in and out of town.
The VSO suspended its Beethoven Festival with a single concert delivered to an empty Orpheum Theatre; then music director Otto Tausk headed back to his young family in the Netherlands. Choirs were hit extra hard after distressing news of a superspreader event at a community ensemble in nearby Washington state.
With the arrival of summer, various ad hoc projects emerged — socially distanced outdoor events began to crop up, subject to the predictable vagaries of Vancouver weather. Two ideas were particularly innovative: The Isolation Commissions project by Little Chamber Music and the Blueridge Festival's 19 Waltzes for the Distanced attracted the attention of the online Journal of the Music Critics Association of North America.
More conventional, but just as welcome, were streaming startups. Early Music Vancouver admitted very small, very distanced audiences to the Chan Centre to hear live performances designed for later streaming.
True to its roots, the Vancouver Recital Society offered a showcase for young pianist Jaeden Izik-Dzurko on its “Virtually VRS” YouTube channel.
As in any year, there was organizational change. Tom Wright stepped up as the new general director of Vancouver Opera.
Matthew White moved on from Early Music Vancouver to take charge of the Victoria Symphony, and was replaced at EMV late in the year by Suzie LeBlanc.
By the fall, streaming concerts were up and running at most music organizations. Our big “home teams,” Vancouver Opera and the VSO, created ambitious digital series' for 2020-21.
Live rehearsals under extra-cautious conditions became a viable option for some groups, and performances for small audiences took place in the first autumn weeks, though the economics of performing for audiences of 40 or less proved tricky.
Alas, even those carefully considered events ground to a halt in November as COVID numbers confirmed our not-unexpected second wave of infections.
It's far too early to draw any definitive lessons from 2020. But it's clear our classical audiences want to hear local groups; they are also listening in increasing numbers to streams from big music centres like London's Wigmore Hall and New York's troubled Metropolitan Opera.
Organizations continue to grapple with costs.
Digital concerts are wonderful, but expensive. Are they to be offered free or should there be a small ticket price?
No one has all the answers, but with a combination of creativity, adaptability and tenacity, classical music will continue to be heard.
By the fall, streaming concerts were up and running at most music organizations.