San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Symphony musicians still performing — and yet something’s missing
San Antonio Symphony musicians Eric Siu and Ryan Murphy recently played for their biggest audience in about two months: six people, including two symphony staffers and two Express-News journalists.
“I’ve been playing to my baby and that’s about it. She is sometimes unimpressed,” Murphy said, laughing. “Tough crowd.”
Siu and Murphy are eager to get back to playing for people who are in the same space, responding to the music in real time.
For the time being, though, they’re playing for digital platforms.
Their solo renderings of works by Bach and Gluck, respectively, were captured on video for a new series on social media designed to promote the symphony and other nonprofits forced to shut down because of restrictions put in place to combat the spread of COVID-19. The first videos were shot at the Briscoe Western Art Museum and the San Antonio Zoo.
In addition to that campaign, the symphony has been posting videos that painstakingly stitch together footage of musicians playing their individual parts in works by Elgar and Sibelius. Steve Peterson is pulling double duty on the project. In addition to recording himself playing as principal trombone, he edits all those videos. He is currently at work on a video of Mahler’s “Resurrection” symphony.
Videos from both projects can be found on the symphony’s Facebook page, @sasymphony. They are part of an ongoing push to make sure San Antonians don’t forget that the city has a symphony that still needs support, even if live performances are not possible right now.
“To be able to create any sort of performance with your colleagues and to have a presence for the symphony and all of our collaborators is really cool,” said Peterson, 38, who has been with the orchestra since 2016. “It certainly is nice to perform in any way you can.”
Siu, Murphy and Peterson all want to be back onstage at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts and play for live audiences again. The 2020-21 season was announced about a month ago. If it goes as scheduled, it will start in September.
Discussions for how that can be done safely — for patrons, musicians and all the people who work backstage, in the lobby and elsewhere — are ongoing.
“We’re talking about being more spaced out on the stage, other safety precautions,” said Siu, 36, who has been with the symphony since 2013. “We’re in discussion mode still. We have a few more months to figure it out.
“We have to think about the safety of the patrons, too, so that’s the other thing we’re talking about.”
Murphy, 38, who has been with the orchestra for eight years, acknowledged the worry that is a part of the discussions about how to come back safely.
“We’re all a little trepidatious about the safety of the musicians,” he said. “You know, wide-ranging people from a wide range of places who are all involved in things outside of work, so it’s going to be interesting to see how to navigate that.”
Peterson, too, noted the fears.
“I have to be honest, for myself, I’m not concerned, but I am concerned for people that are concerned,” he said. “I want to be super respectful and understanding of those people. If we need to increase the space (between musicians) or come up with a testing method, I’m OK with that.
“I know a smaller number (of musicians playing) has been discussed. I don’t think that’s really sustainable. I think we want to be able to perform in large numbers again.”
Murphy is grateful for the opportunity for the musicians to share their talents via video, but, he said, “it’s weird.”
“It’s like having a conversation with yourself,” he said. “So much of what we do and so much of what I enjoy about our job is the interaction in these master works that you’re able to have with the people onstage, and you’re able to use their energy and the audience energy to try and create a once-ever kind of performance.”
Once the symphony is able to return to the Tobin Center, Murphy thinks performances will be a little different at first.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunities for innovation for different sorts of concerts — smaller concerts. And maybe just different interactions with the audience,” he said. “We’ve been talking about some ideas about virtual reality and having different seating arrangements. The great thing about the Tobin Center is that we’re able to have that flexibility.”
Symphony musicians have kept in touch with each other, calling and texting. And when given the chance to perform in any way, most will jump on it.
“I just want to get out and play music again,” Siu said.
For their solo outings, he and
Murphy played in the thirdfloor galleries of the Briscoe on a Friday morning about a week before it reopened. Murphy played his cello beside a chuck wagon; Siu played his violin in a gallery devoted to the Alamo.
“This is a really neat setting,” Murphy said. “I hope Bach works in here. Bach works everywhere, but this is a very unique space. Only in Texas, right?”
Both musicians wore masks for most of the time they were inside the museum, though they removed them while they played — no surprise to anyone else who wears glasses and has had them fog up while masked.
Both have done a lot of practicing while sheltering in place, as well as shifting their private lessons and the other teaching they do online.
Siu has been working to keep himself busy, learning new music and trying new recipes.
“Originally, we were only canceled for five weeks,” he said. “And I was like, how am I going to do this for five whole weeks? I’m OK with it now. I’m still looking forward to playing music with my colleagues.”
Murphy and his partner, fellow symphony cellist Morgen Johnson, occasionally play for daughter Tallulah Rose, who was born in January, for as long as her attention span allows. Sometimes they can get all the way through a Bach suite before she gets fussy.
“We’re really trying to make the best of it,” Murphy said. “It’s really great to have the time to be with her and to practice and kind of be thankful for the things that we have, that we’re still in the symphony and still working, still doing what we can in the community, still teaching.”
Peterson has been practicing at home, too. He has gotten to play outside his house a bit, for church services. When he is home, he often is working on the symphony videos, a project proposed by Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing.
He has been creating multimedia content since he was a college student. “It started as a hobby, and then I became the musician that did videos,” he said.
For the symphony videos, Peterson tried to make sure they sound good and also are visually appealing, aiming to try to duplicate in the formatting the way the musicians sit when they are onstage together and to guide viewers’ attention.
He is devoting a fair amount of time to similar projects for other ensembles.
“I don’t seek out a lot of extra video work, but this COVID thing is changing that for the moment,” he said.
He’s grateful for that — “Having some value or purpose is always good,” he said — but he also misses performing. Ideally, his time would be more evenly split between playing and video work.
“When I’m not performing enough, which is probably now, I definitely feel it, and I feel a little out of balance,” he said. “I feel like I need to have them both to feel complete.”
“I’ve been playing to my baby and that’s about it. … Tough crowd.”
Ryan Murphy, cellist with the San Antonio Symphony