Something in the air
In any other time, under any other circumstance, the question would seem minor and technical. But today it has taken on both a global significance and pressing deadline: What happens to your breath when you play an instrument?
The answer could contribute to society’s budding understanding of the health risks of attending a classical concert, which will affect major decisions by the world’s largest orchestras.
The Houston Symphony has partnered with researchers at Rice University to try to do just that — study how air particles are spread during a symphonic concert, thus giving orchestras a road map to reopening safely.
The study, funded by the Rice University COVID-19 Research Fund Oversight and Review Committee and expected to be released later this summer, could help symphonies around the world find a way to hold a live concert while practicing safe social-distancing guidelines.
“This is an urgent matter,” said Robert Yekovich, dean of the Shepard School of Music at Rice. “Orchestras are waiting for information on what they’ll be able to do eight weeks from now.”
Viral ghost in the machine
Ashok Veeraraghavan, Ashutosh Sabharwal, Yekovich and Houston Symphony CEO John Mangum penned the proposal for this study. Both Veeraraghavan and Sabharwal are electrical and computer engineering professors at Rice.
Veeraraghavan and Sabharwal spent June calibrating the machines they’ll use to test a variety of Houston Symphony musicians. They plan to begin the study this month. They’re using “Schlieren photography,” which tracks air flow by observing changes in its density; air itself, being invisible, can’t be tracked directly.
The machines would be able to see just how far an instrumentalist’s breath goes when he or she plays.
“Schlieren optics is a beautiful way of measuring. It’s an elegant technique,” Veeraraghavan said.
Symphony musicians representing a variety of instruments — including a singer — will sit in front of this unique camera and perform. The machine will then be able to tell researchers how far the air is spread, giving orchestras much-needed knowledge as they prepare to open this fall.
The understanding of how instruments spread air, after all, has a deadline — the upcoming arts season. The lack of concerts since March has caused orchestras around the world to enter survival mode. The music director for the London Symphony Orchestra co-wrote in a letter to the Guardian that “orchestras may not survive” the pandemic. In June, the Houston Symphony, citing survival, laid off 21 employees and slashed its budget by $11 million.
To open or not to open
Arts organizations are split on whether to open this fall. The Houston Symphony and the Alley Theatre plan to perform, as does the London Symphony Orchestra. But the Houston Grand Opera, like the New York Philharmonic, has canceled its fall season.
The world has yet to agree on how we should approach symphonic concerts during the era of COVID-19. Just how risky is it to see an orchestra perform? Very little science exists right now.
The Texas Medical Association has named “going to a large music concert” as among the riskiest activities one can do, with a risk factor of 9 out of 10.
In a now-famous case, a single choir practice in Mount Vernon, Wash., led to 53 being infected with the coronavirus and two of them dying. A medical study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, “Transmission was likely facilitated by close proximity (within 6 feet) during practice and augmented by the act of singing.”
But a May 2020 study by the Vienna Orchestra found that air droplets don’t travel very far when someone plays an instrument. Excluding singers, the riskiest instrument is the flute, which requires a larger amount of air flow than other instruments, but even a flutist’s air travels less than 3 feet. This led the orchestra to conclude that, when instrumentalists are at least 1 meter (or about 3 feet) apart, orchestras “pose no increased risk.”
That conclusion, however, doesn’t account for the fact that air droplets can hang in the air and be spread later, according to an article published by two health experts at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
“Even if there is minimal airflow from playing, if aerosols are produced especially in the context of deep breathing, there is a risk of spreading the aerosols around the environment,” authors Adam Schwalje and Henry Hoffman wrote. “This risk is not quantifiable at the moment.”
Difficult decisions await symphonies this coming season no matter what.
Mangum, the CEO of the Houston Symphony, said the symphony will use the results of the Rice study — along with other similar studies — to help draft guidelines for reopening.
“We have to think in new ways and on all fronts in fighting this disease, and you can find the answers in science. It’s a great first step,” he said. “How do we safely sit musicians together onstage? If there are 10 studies that tell you the same, you start to feel better. We’ll contributing to building a body of evidence.”