London Virtual Orchestra Concerts - Playing Amidst a Pandemic

July 20, 2020, 7:11 PM · As I slowly engrave my song that I'm writing for soprano and piano, excited to continue it from a plan I came up with this morning on my walk to use this melodic material as part of another piece, I've been enjoying this string orchestra concert from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, playing three gorgeous strings works from Elgar, Corelli, and Grieg. I really wanted to share this video here as a way to mark the 2020 pandemic and the way concerts are right now (this one in the distanced audience-less orchestra style), and all three of these pieces are gorgeous and are helping me relax after being frustrated with Dorico as I engraved with that before switching back to Finale. I hope this concert brings you some joy as it has done for me in these difficult times. I've been starting to put on many virtual concerts now from YouTube, and enjoy viewing them on my second monitor I have in my room. I can share some more in the future if that's of interest.

London Philharmonic Orchestra - Summer Sessions: Strings - Elgar, Corelli and Grieg

On the 16th July, I watched this concert by the Philharmonia Orchestra (another London, UK orchestra) featuring a conductor I know well from the Proms (John Wilson), an orchestra I know well, and two pieces by Saint-Saëns and Vaughan-Williams, two more gorgeous works in the same style as the LPO's video. I thought I'd share this as well.

Philharmonia Sessions: Sheku Performs Saint-Saëns

I see these two concert formats being the way of the future: having them virtually, with the ensembles taking up the entire physical space (the Philharmonia goes into great detail about how the spread out the performers, strings 2 metres, winds and brass 3); OR having smaller amounts of players, and audiences spread out in their seats. This isn't ideal at all, but at least we can still have music in some capacity, and from what I've seen music is starting to really be made again in this form. I've had one rehearsal with a friend performing some of my violin duets I mentioned in my last blog post, and those were alright practicing outside. All of our other rehearsals have been over Zoom, which haven't been ideal with the half-second delay, but still fun to laugh about our mistakes and try to fix things the best we can.

Playing music with someone else is so important, and keeps us excited to play our instruments. I hope you are able to make music with and/or for others.

Anyways - hope these concerts help kickstart a conversation. We'll get through these crazy times!

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London Virtual Orchestra Concerts - Playing Amidst a Pandemic

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