Despite Covid Hurdles, US Orchestras Find the Joy in Music

Conductor Gianandrea Noseda leads the National Symphony Orchestra in a rehearsal at the Kennedy Center in Washington -- the ensemble is back on stage performing, despite the hurdles associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. Stefani Reynolds AFP
Conductor Gianandrea Noseda leads the National Symphony Orchestra in a rehearsal at the Kennedy Center in Washington -- the ensemble is back on stage performing, despite the hurdles associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. Stefani Reynolds AFP
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Despite Covid Hurdles, US Orchestras Find the Joy in Music

Conductor Gianandrea Noseda leads the National Symphony Orchestra in a rehearsal at the Kennedy Center in Washington -- the ensemble is back on stage performing, despite the hurdles associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. Stefani Reynolds AFP
Conductor Gianandrea Noseda leads the National Symphony Orchestra in a rehearsal at the Kennedy Center in Washington -- the ensemble is back on stage performing, despite the hurdles associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. Stefani Reynolds AFP

At the start of 2020, the National Symphony Orchestra was planning its first international tour with conductor Gianandrea Noseda, and an epic Beethoven cycle to mark the 250th anniversary of the legendary composer's birth.

Instead, the coronavirus pandemic forced the ensemble out of the Kennedy Center in the US capital for 18 months, and the Beethoven symphonic series has been rescheduled, starting this month and wrapping up in... 2023, AFP said.

The NSO and other professional orchestras in the United States have resumed live performances in recent months while navigating a maelstrom of Covid-19 rules, trying to keep everyone healthy, and convincing wary listeners to buy tickets again.

"It has been a big challenge," Noseda told AFP after an afternoon rehearsal for January's concerts, which include some of the Beethoven symphonies -- but not the Ninth, as the chorus required would put too many unmasked people on stage.

Noseda, who was not able to travel to Washington for a year as the crisis unfolded, detailed the NSO's pandemic evolution from virtual concerts, small groups on stage and plexiglass between musicians to the more or less normal 2021-22 season.

"The alternative would have been no performance at all," the 57-year-old Italian maestro said, explaining that he managed to keep in touch with his players during the long hiatus through Zoom calls and emails.

Now, Noseda says there is a "really perceivable" sense of musicians and audiences appreciating the moment, and not looking too far ahead.

"I fully enjoy that moment," he said. "It's a gift to you."

- Vaccines, testing and adaptability -
So how do you go about making sure that dozens of musicians can be on stage together safely for rehearsals and concerts, especially when some of them -- brass and woodwind players -- cannot be masked?

The plexiglass partitions seen earlier in the pandemic are gone, but all NSO members who can play while masked do so, and protocols are rigid.

"It's a new world for all of us," said NSO executive director Gary Ginstling, explaining that general manager Genevieve Twomey and her team have basically become "an in-house medical team" conducting weekly testing and monitoring.

Twomey said "very few" positive results had been detected so far within the orchestra.

But in Texas, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra was forced to cancel two concerts and cut planned works from two others this month because they could not replace key musicians who had tested positive.

"Omicron has been particularly challenging because it's so contagious and prevalent," DSO president and CEO Kim Noltemy told AFP in a statement.

For Jamie Roberts, the NSO's assistant principal oboe player who clearly performs without a mask, "once there was a vaccine, and people could get a vaccine, I felt really safe."

Colin Williams, the associate principal trombone player at the New York Philharmonic, agreed that protocols in place had been "worth it," ensuring the musicians' safety and that of their loved ones at home.

"I personally feel that when I'm at work, I don't feel like I'm in danger," Williams told AFP.

Roberts, 37, says she is thrilled to be back on stage, but before that became possible, she helped shape the orchestra's virtual programming, dubbed NSO at Home.

Many other US classical ensembles launched similar initiatives to keep attendees engaged.

"We believe that creating programs for home viewing is an integral part of our future and the future of the field," said Jim Roe, the president and executive director of the New York-based Orchestra of St Luke's.

So, will Americans don masks to experience live orchestral music, as they weather the surge in Covid-19 cases?

Officials with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra feared Omicron would dent sales. In the end, 80 percent of tickets for its January concerts were sold.

While some cities such as New York and Washington have implemented vaccine and mask mandates at concert venues with ease, the Dallas symphony ran up against Governor Greg Abbott's executive orders barring such requirements.

Noltemy said the DSO, mindful of an "obligation" to keep attendees safe, is keeping its mask rules in place, despite the risk of being fined for doing so.

The organization is also offering free on-site rapid testing for those without proof of vaccination in hand "to ensure the safest possible environment," Noltemy said.

- Looking ahead -
So, what does the future hold? Can orchestras plan to travel this year, or the year after that? And if not, how will that affect programming?

In Chicago, when a scheduled Asian tour for January was canceled, conductor Riccardo Muti planned a series of concerts in the Windy City, including some that are free to the public.

Back in Washington, while the NSO has planned a full season, Ginstling admitted future travel was uncertain.

"There are a lot more questions than answers right now," he said.

But Roberts, the oboe player, said she is simply reveling in the moment, being reunited with her colleagues.

"We missed each other, it's a family," she said. "It's a really cool job."



Movie Review: 'Eddington' Is a Satire About Our Broken Brains That Might Re-Break Your Brain

 This image released by A24 shows Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from "Eddington." (A24 via AP)
This image released by A24 shows Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from "Eddington." (A24 via AP)
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Movie Review: 'Eddington' Is a Satire About Our Broken Brains That Might Re-Break Your Brain

 This image released by A24 shows Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from "Eddington." (A24 via AP)
This image released by A24 shows Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from "Eddington." (A24 via AP)

You might need to lie down for a bit after "Eddington." Preferably in a dark room with no screens and no talking. "Eddington," Ari Aster's latest nightmare vision, is sure to divide but there is one thing I think everyone will be able to agree on: It is an experience that will leave you asking "WHAT?" The movie opens on the aggravated ramblings of an unhoused man and doesn't get much more coherent from there. Approach with caution.

We talk a lot about movies as an escape from the stresses of the world. "Eddington," in which a small, fictional town in New Mexico becomes a microcosm of life in the misinformation age, and more specifically during the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, is very much the opposite of that. It is an anti-escapist symphony of masking debates, conspiracy theories, YouTube prophets, TikTok trends and third-rail topics in which no side is spared. Most everyone looks insane and ridiculous by the end, from the white teenage girl (Amélie Hoeferle) telling a Black cop (Michael Ward) to join the movement, to the grammatical errors of the truthers, as the town spirals into chaos and gruesome violence.

Joaquin Phoenix plays the town sheriff, a soft-spoken wife guy named Joe Cross, who we meet out in the desert one night watching YouTube videos about how to convince your wife to have a baby. He's interrupted by cops from the neighboring town, who demand he put on a mask since he's technically crossed the border.

It is May 2020, and everyone is a little on edge. Joe, frustrated by the hysterical commitment to mandates from nowhere, finds himself the unofficial spokesperson for the right to go unmasked. He pits himself against the slick local mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), who is up for reelection, in the pocket of big tech and ready to exploit his single fatherhood for political gain. At home, Joe's mother-in-law Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell) spends all day consuming internet conspiracy theories, while his wife Louise (a criminally underused Emma Stone) works on crafts and nurses unspoken traumas.

Joe's eagerness to take on Ted isn't just about masking. Years ago, Ted dated his now-wife, a story that will be twisted into rape and grooming accusations. Caricatures and stereotypes are everywhere in "Eddington," but in this world it feels like the women are especially underwritten - they are kooks, victims, zealots and the ones who push fragile men to the brink. But in "Eddington," all the conspiracies are real and ordinary people are all susceptible to the madness.

In fact, insanity is just an inevitability no matter how well-intentioned one starts out, whether that's the woke-curious teen rattled by rejection, or the loyal deputy Guy (Luke Grimes) who is suddenly more than happy to accuse a colleague of murder. Louise will also be swayed by a floppy-haired internet guru, a cult-like leader played with perfect swagger by Austin Butler.

The problem with an anarchic satire like "Eddington," in theaters Friday, is that any criticism could easily be dismissed with a "that's the point" counterargument. And yet there is very little to be learned in this silo of provocations that, like all Aster movies, escalates until the movie is over.

There are moments of humor and wit, too, as well as expertly built tension and release. "Eddington" is not incompetently done or unwatchable (the cast and the director kind of guarantee that); it just doesn't feel a whole of anything other than a cinematic expression of broken brains.

Five years after we just went through (at least a lot of) this, "Eddington" somehow seems both too late and too soon, especially when it offers so little wisdom or insight beyond a vision of hopelessness. I wonder what world Aster thought he'd be releasing this film into. Maybe one that was better, not cosmically worse.

It's possible "Eddington" will age well. Perhaps it's the kind of movie that future Gen Alpha cinephiles will point to as being ahead of its time, a work that was woefully misunderstood by head-in-the-sand critics who didn't see that it was 2025's answer to the prescient paranoia cinema of the 1970s.

Not to sound like the studio boss in "Sullivan's Travels," trying to get the filmmaker with big issues on the mind to make a dumb comedy, but right now, "Eddington" feels like the last thing any of us need.