"Audiences Are Back, More or Less"

A Supplement to the Regional Theater Series

[The following omnibus report on the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic and shutdown on attendance at public events and venues such as plays, concerts, and museums appeared in the “Arts” section of the New York Times on 13 March 2024.  It’s a collection of mini-reports by Times writers who cover the various areas of arts, culture, and entertainment.

[Over the past few months, I’ve published several articles on Rick On Theater related to the state and background of the regional theater in the United States: “A Crisis In America’s Theaters” on 13 September 2023, “The Regional Theater: Change or Die” on 3 October 2023, and “Regional Theater: History” on 8 October 2023.  In November and December, I ran an 11-part series on “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts” because the NEA had a huge influence on the development and growth of the regional theater in the U.S. 

[Because of the seriousness of this subject, I said when I started this coverage that I’d post on it from various perspectives from time to time.  Below is my fifth report in that occasional series.]

With shutdowns over, pop concerts crowds are up, but Broadway is still a bit down.

It was four years ago — on March 12, 2020 — that the coronavirus brought the curtain down on Broadway for what was initially supposed to be a monthlong shutdown, but which wound up lasting a year and a half.

The pandemic brought live events and big gatherings to a halt, silencing orchestras, shutting museums and movie theaters and leaving sports teams playing to empty stadiums dotted with cardboard cutouts.

Now, four years later, audiences are coming back, but the recovery has been uneven. Here is a snapshot of where things stand from reporters of The New York Times.

Broadway audiences are still down 17 percent from prepandemic levels.

On Broadway, overall attendance is still down about 17 percent: 9.3 million seats have been filled in the current season as of March 3, down from 11.1 million at the same point in 2020. Box office grosses are down, too: Broadway shows have grossed $1.2 billion so far this season, 14 percent below the level in early March of 2020.

Broadway has always had more flops than successes, and the post-pandemic period has been challenging for producers and investors, especially those involved in new musicals. Three pop productions that have opened since the pandemic — “Six,” about the wives of King Henry VIII, “MJ,” about Michael Jackson and “& Juliet,” which imagines an alternate history for Shakespeare’s tragic heroine — are ongoing hits, but far more musicals have flamed out. The industry is looking with some trepidation toward next month, when a large crop of new shows is set to open.

Many nonprofit theaters around the country are also struggling [see “Theater in America Is Facing a Crisis as Many Stages Go Dark” by Michael Paulson (New York Times, 24 July 2023), posted on ROT in “A Crisis In America’s Theaters”] — attracting fewer subscribers and producing fewer shows — and some have closed. One bright spot has been the touring Broadway market, which has been booming.

michael paulson

Sales for the biggest pop concerts increased by 65 percent.

After a fitful recovery, the pop touring industry has now reached record highs, enabled by superstar tours, pent-up fan demand and ever-higher ticket prices.

The top 100 tours around the world generated $9.2 billion in ticket sales last year — a record by far, according to the trade publication Pollstar, which tracks touring data. That was up an astonishing 65 percent from 2019. The average ticket price last year was $131, up 23 percent from 2022, which accounts for some of the jump. Concert attendance climbed about 18 percent last year, to 70 million.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was the biggest of many success stories, estimated at just over $1 billion in ticket sales, a new high (with dozens of dates still to come in 2024). According to numbers crunched by Pollstar, Swifties paid an average of $239 per ticket to see her show.

Not every artist is celebrating the post-pandemic touring boom, though. Those who operate below the level of arenas and amphitheaters — and lack the promotional apparatus of a Swift or a Beyoncé — have been sounding an alarm about skyrocketing costs, and continuing supply-chain issues, that have eroded profit margins and made touring riskier and more expensive for non-superstars.

ben sisario

There are 4,800 fewer movie screens.

Thanks to “Barbie,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” the 2023 domestic box office, which includes the United States and Canada, took in close to $9 billion. That’s a marked increase from 2022 but still not at prepandemic levels, when theaters reliably sold $11 billion in tickets annually.

Fewer films were released in 2023: There were 125 wide releases, down from 138 in 2019, said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter [FranchiseRe (https://franchisere.substack.com/)] on box office numbers. Some films were delayed by the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which shut down Hollywood for close to six months [2 May-27 September 2023 and 14 July-9 November 2023, respectively.]

The number of screens across the country has also declined. Some independent theater chains like Pacific Theaters and ArcLight Cinemas went out of business. And the top three U.S. chains, AMC, Regal and Cinemark, shut about 1,000 screens collectively, according to David Hancock, the chief analyst for cinema at Omdia, a London-based research company. He said that at the end of 2023, there were 36,369 screens in the country, down 12 percent from the 41,172 screens before the shutdown.

nicole sperling

Orchestra ticket sales are up 2 percent, yet some opera companies struggle.

Many orchestras are beginning to return to, or even exceed, prepandemic levels. The number of tickets that orchestras sold increased by 2 percent in 2023 compared with 2019, according to a study of 42 medium- and large-size orchestras by TRG Arts, an analytics firm, in partnership with the League of American Orchestras. Some continue to struggle, though, and some are giving fewer performances than they used to.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is averaging 78 percent attendance so far this season, compared with 63 percent before the pandemic. The New York Philharmonic, which completed a $550 million renovation of its hall in 2022 that made it more audience-friendly and reduced its seating capacity, is averaging 85 percent attendance this season compared with 74 percent before the pandemic. The San Francisco Symphony has had 74 percent attendance so far this season, slightly ahead of where it was before the shutdown, but it has fewer performances. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is now averaging 89 percent attendance, back where it was before the pandemic, even as the number of subscribers has fallen to 6,409 from 8,791.

But the Detroit Symphony Orchestra said that its attendance had fallen to 59 percent through March this season, down from 74 percent in the same period during the 2019-20 season, a drop it attributed to a loss of subscribers who have yet to return.

Many opera companies have had a hard time, as the cost of staging live opera — which requires sets, costumes, singers, chorus members and large orchestras — has risen. Ticket revenues at opera houses across the nation were down by about 22 percent last season compared with 2018-19, according to a recent study by Opera America, a nonprofit group, which said that so far this season, revenues are up.

At the Metropolitan Opera in New York, paid attendance is about 73 percent so far this season, compared with 71 percent at the same point in 2019-20, when fears of the pandemic were already beginning to keep operagoers away. And the Met now gives fewer performances overall. The pandemic has seriously strained the Met’s finances: The company has withdrawn about $70 million from its endowment over the past two seasons.

Many leading dance companies have largely bounced back from the disruption brought by Covid. Attendance at New York City Ballet so far this season is at 79 percent, compared with 73 percent before the pandemic, and San Francisco Ballet is at 78 percent attendance, compared with 66 percent in the 2019-20 season.

javier c. hernández

Museum attendance is mixed.

While some major museums have been able to regain lost ground, others are still seeing fewer visitors, which continues to strain their already-stretched finances.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York reported nearly 861,000 visitors last year, a 26 percent decline from about 1.2 million visitors before the pandemic, when its Hilma af Klint exhibition [12 October 2018-23 April 2019] set new attendance records. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has seen a 15 percent decline over the same period, to 5.8 million visitors from 6.8 million, which could be partially attributed to the loss of its Met exhibition space at the Breuer building on Madison Avenue. And the Art Institute of Chicago said that attendance had also decreased by about 15 percent since the shutdown with about 1.3 million visitors in 2023, saying that while it now has more paid local visitors than it did before the pandemic, there are still fewer international visitors.

[The Met Breuer closed in July 2020 for budgetary reasons and the building was turned over to the Frick Collection while its Upper East Side home underwent expansion. The Frick vacated the Madison Avenue building on 3 March 2024 and it will be a facility of Sotheby’s auction house in September.]

Some regional organizations — relying more on local populations than international tourists — have seen stronger comebacks. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston said that it had experienced a 20 percent increase in visitors over the last fiscal year when compared to prepandemic levels. “We have also witnessed a change in the demographics of our audience, with a larger percentage of younger visitors, which bodes well for the future,” said Gary Tinterow, the museum’s director and chairman.

And the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, which completed a renovation project last year, said that it attracted a record 277,882 visitors last year, up from 240,706 in 2019.

Zachary Small and Robin Pogrebin

Sports fans are back.

Sports fans are back. All four major sports leagues — the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League — had bigger attendance in their most recent regular seasons than they did in 2019, according to a calculation of the leagues’ data by The Times.

The N.F.L. saw the sharpest increase: 18.9 million people in 2023, up 10.9 percent from the 17 million people in 2019. That is in part because the league added a game to the regular-season schedule in 2021 as part of a new media-rights package. That bumped the total number of games played in a season from 256 to 272.

Attendance for Major League Baseball increased 3.2 percent last season compared with its last full season before the pandemic.  The National Basketball Association had a 1.2 percent increase and the National Hockey League had a 1.1 percent increase.

Emmanuel Morgan

[This post is also the most recent entry in another ad hoc series: the effect of the COVID pandemic on the theater and the theater’s response to the crisis.  Other posts on that topic are:

•   “Theaters Go Dark Across the Nation,” 29 March and 1 April 2020

•   “Suzan-Lori Parks on the Covid Pandemic,” 17 May 2020

•   “Theater Online – A Preliminary Report” by Kirk Woodward and Rick, 19 May 2020

•   “‘Connecting through art when a pandemic keeps us apart’” by Jeffrey Brown, 26 June 2020

•   “Yo Yo Ma on the Artist’s Role in the Time of Covid-19,” 28 August 2020

•   “‘Medical professionals turn to music as a tonic’” by Jeffrey Brown and Anne Azzi Davenport, 22 September 2020

•   “‘At this Virginia theater, the show – and the masks – must go on’” by John Yang, et al., 18 October 2020

•   “‘Despite the Pandemic, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like “Christmas Carol’” by Jerald Raymond Pierce, 27 December 2020

•   “‘Waiting out a pandemic – and for our “King Lear”’” by Peter Marks, 11 January 2021

•   “The Show Goes On During the Pandemic,” 26 January 2021

•   “‘Great Performances’: The Arts Interrupted” produced and directed by Akisa Omulepu, 3 and 6 June 2021

•   “‘As Attendance Falls, Now Is the Winter of Broadway’s Discontent’” by Michael Paulson, 23 January 2022

•   “At the Theater: To Wear A Mask, Or Not To Wear A Mask,” 27 June 2022

[In addition, there are many other posts in which Covid, the coronavirus, the pandemic, and/or the shutdown gets a mention.]

"At this Virginia theater, the show – and the masks – must go on"

 by John Yang, Alison Thoet, and Maea Lenei Buhre

[On 9 October, the Broadway League, the national trade association for the Broadway industry, announced that ticket sales for all Broadway productions in New York City will remain suspended until 30 May 2021.  Touring shows are also affected, and Off-Broadway theaters, even though they’re not bound by Broadway League decisions, have been following the League’s lead on pandemic-related issues.

[Regional theaters, however, are bound to follow local and state mandates, which differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, as PBS NewsHour correspondent John Yang found out when he visited the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia.  His report, written with Alison Thoet and Maea Lenei Buhre, on how the ASC is handling this situation was broadcast on Thursday, 8 October 2020 on the NewsHour.  The transcript of that report is posted below.

[ROTters may remember that back on 18 and 21 November 2009, I posted a pair of articles on a theater troupe that built themselves a replica of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars Theatre.  I’d taken my mom there for a long weekend in May 2003 (for her birthday and Mother’s Day) and we saw the three shows the company was doing that season.  I wrote up the performances and then did a report on the theater recreation itself. 

[That company was then called Shenandoah Shakespeare, but now (since 2005), it’s the American Shakespeare Center.  Readers may find those earlier posts edifying—or at least interesting,  They’re available at https://rickontheater.blogspot.com/2009/11/shenandoah-shakespeare.html and https://rickontheater.blogspot.com/2009/11/blackfriars-playhouse-in-virginia.html, respectively.]

Seven months into the pandemic, theater companies are still struggling to raise the curtain on live performances. But one regional company in rural Virginia hopes it has found a way for the show to go on — in a way that’s safe. John Yang reports as part of our American Creators series on rural arts and Canvas, our ongoing coverage of arts and culture. 

Judy Woodruff: To be or not to be. Seven months into the coronavirus pandemic, live theaters are struggling to raise the curtain.

John Yang is back to take us to one regional company in rural Virginia that hopes it’s found a way for the show go on, safely.

It’s part of our ongoing American Creators series on rural arts and Canvas, our coverage of arts and culture.

John Yang: Theater audiences have gotten used to admonitions about silencing cell phones, but unusual times call for unusual requests.

Man: We ask that you continue to wear your masks and wear them properly. If you do not wear them properly, we will kill you.

(LAUGHTER)

Man: If this pandemic doesn’t.

John Yang: At the American Shakespeare Center, nestled in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, a rare sight, live theater, indoors, with a live audience, alternating performances of “Othello” and “Twelfth Night” through October 18.

Ethan McSweeny: Some of the very large organizations, I think they can afford to kind of run for the hills, wait for the wave to break and then come back and reopen.

John Yang: Artistic director Ethan McSweeny.

Ethan McSweeny: The small and mid-sized like us, our — I guess our solution was to surf the wave and hopefully stay afloat.

John Yang: McSweeny led an appropriately distanced tour of the 32-year-old company’s theater.

Ethan McSweeny: You don’t expect this when you come into the small town of Staunton, Virginia, and you walk into our sort of unprepossessing, rather ordinary lobby, and then you’re in here, in this incredible, world’s-only recreation of Shakespeare’s indoor theater, the Blackfriars Playhouse.

John Yang: Like Shakespeare’s 17th century Blackfriars, there is minimal scenery, no sound amplification, and universal lighting, illuminating both audience and actors.

But unlike the Bard’s theater, even though it operated at the time of the bubonic plague, there are elaborate safety precautions.

Ethan McSweeny: We started creating a series of protocols that we ended up calling SafeStart.

We started with the workplace protocols and also added the audience protocols, many of which are the same and similar. But it was — I mean, obviously, as the name suggests, safety is the primary.

Man: Wonderful first day of rehearsals.

John Yang: For the actors, the plan, developed with medical advice, had an initial two-week quarantine, with rehearsals over Zoom. Next came in-person rehearsals, first with masks, and then gradually without.

Backstage, personnel and management still must wear masks at all times. To let patrons choose the way they’re most comfortable seeing a show, for the first time, the company added outdoor performances on the grounds of the nearby Blackburn Inn and streamed performances on the Internet.

“Othello” is set in Venice at the time of the plague, so some scenes incorporate masks. Infection rates are relatively low in the area, and the company has not had any COVID cases.

The performers have daily symptom checks, live in their own bubble in company-provided housing, and have signed an isolation covenant.

Jessika D. Williams plays the title role in “Othello.”

Jessika D. Williams: You know, this is not risk-free. It’s like we have tightened it up. And I think we have done a great job. And we are all taking care of each other. And it’s been working so far.

John Yang: John Harrell is in his 26th season with the theater.

John Harrell: I think we all know, at this point, the entire enterprise depends on our being responsible to a larger group.

But that is a condition that ensemble actors are used to, whether it’s COVID or other things. We all know — actors are always on time. And we always know our lines.

John Yang: From the stage, cast members keep an eye on whether audiences obey the requirement to keep their masks on. They can stop a performance at any time.

John Harrell: It adds a certain level of anxiety. It’s like, well, she’s taking a deep breath and going to put it right back on. Do I need to stop the show? What’s — you know, what do I do? Do I alert the stage management. Am I — so, there’s — it’s just one more thing to be paying attention to and to be juggling.

But, so far, we haven’t had — everybody’s been really compliant with our rules.

John Yang: Seating capacity in the indoor theater has been cut by more than 50 percent. And the mask requirement for audiences has meant some adjustment for actors.

John Harrell: You’re used to looking, all right, is that person smiling. Is that person on the verge of laughing at this joke? Do they look angry? Do they look bored? All of those cues that we take.

But I have started noticing, you can see those cues anyway. It’s just a little bit — you have to just pay a little bit more attention.

So, it was odd at first. But, like with everything else in this pandemic, it’s gotten easier and more — you just get more used to it.

John Yang: Audience members at a recent indoor matinee of “Othello” said they felt safe.

Ezriona Prioleau and Kara Painter came from nearby Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Ezriona Prioleau: I mean, we were more than six feet away from the closest person. And so knowing that and seeing that makes it feel like they’re doing all they can.

Kara Painter: Yes, and theater is probably about one of the oldest forms of art storytelling. So, like, bringing it back outside or bringing it inside, it’s still just the same core of telling a story, telling people’s points of view and kind of learning and growing with other people.

John Yang: Laura Lattimer and Shobhit Gupta traveled from Charlottesville, Virginia.

Laura Lattimer: I wish I weren’t wearing a mask, but I think they made a good show that, kind of — they even wore their masks on stage, as you saw, at some points.

So, I think recognizing the times is very Shakespeare, too, right? He recognized what was going on in the world and played up to that. So I think it was very fitting, I suppose.

John Yang: Some said attending a live performance for the first time in nearly a year was surprisingly moving.

Karen Marsh of Charlottesville.

Karen Marsh: I didn’t realize how much I missed it.

When the — before the performance started and they came out singing, I started weeping. And that was completely unexpected to me. But it was so powerful just to be in the presence of creative people doing art. It really was moving.

John Yang: The theater hopes it’s found a way to provide more people with that experience during the pandemic, announcing that, in December, it will stage the holiday classic “A Christmas Carol.”

For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m John Yang in Staunton, Virginia.

Judy Woodruff: The Bard would be pleased. So wonderful that they are doing this in Staunton.

And thank you, John.

[Readers should note that my article on “Shenandoah Shakespeare,” referenced above, explains some of the issues mentioned in passing in John Yang’s report: why a female actor is playing Othello, where that opening admonition fits into the ASC performance text, and other matters.  (“Blackfriars Playhouse in Virginia” describes the design and construction of the theater building itself.)

[A word, now, about ASC’s home town: despite its spelling, Staunton’s name is pronounced STAN-tun, not STAWN-tun.  The small town (population just under 24,000) is the home of Mary Baldwin University, formerly Mary Baldwin College, a women’s college, when I was a student at nearby Washington and Lee University (which, incidentally, started in Staunton as the Augusta Academy—Staunton is the seat of Augusta County—but moved to Lexington, in Rockbridge County, in 1780).

[Coincidentally, the two other Virginia towns mentioned above are also college towns: Harrisonburg is the location of James Madison University (formerly Madison College, another women’s school) and Charlottesville is the site of the University of Virginia.

[John Yang is a correspondent for the PBS NewsHour. He covered the first year of the Trump administration and is currently reporting on major national issues from Washington, D.C., and across the country. Alison Thoet is a writer and online reporter for the PBS NewsHour, covering primarily women’s social and political stories. Maea Lenei Buhre is a production associate for the PBS NewsHour.]

"Medical professionals turn to music making as a tonic"

by Jeffrey Brown and Anne Azzi Davenport 

[I seem to have launched a sort of ad hoc series about the performing arts and performing artists in the time of COVID-19.  I started in March and April with a two-part collection of articles reporting what theatergoers and reviewers in different parts of the country were doing to fill the theater gap right after performances all ceased.

[I went through a report on an online play reading to an online performance of The Diary of Anne Frank from St. Paul in May, followed in June by a PBS NewsHour transcript about the artist’s place in this crisis.  In July, I ran a report from Kirk Woodward on a play contest he entered that was conducted on the Internet accompanied in August by Kirk’s report on an online acting class he took.

[At the end of that month, I reposted a collection of pieces from NewsHour again concerning cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s call for artists to help keep people’s spirits up while they’re stuck in their homes.  Now, here it is September and I’m posting another NewsHour transcript pertaining to artists and the pandemic: a report on medical professionals who’ve found that playing music has a therapeutic effect—on the doctors and nurses making the music even more than anyone else who may be listening to it.

[The following report, produced by Anne Azzi Davenport and delivered by Jeffrey Brown, NewsHour’s chief arts correspondent, was broadcast on PBS NewsHour on Friday evening, 18 September  2020.]

Where do healers find comfort? For some U.S. doctors and caregivers, the answer is in music. Jeffrey Brown went to Newton, Massachusetts, recently to see how medical professionals are regenerating their spirits—and becoming better providers in the process. It’s part of our ongoing arts and culture coverage, Canvas.

Judy Woodruff: If you are a healer, question: Where do you find comfort? In the case of doctors across the United States, the answer is music.

As part of a new series focusing on the connection between arts and health, Jeffrey Brown went to Newton, Massachusetts, recently to see how medical professionals are regenerating their spirits and becoming better providers.

The story is part of our ongoing arts and culture coverage, Canvas.

Jeffrey Brown: It’s called the National Virtual Medical Orchestra, 60 medical professionals and students from around the country, musicians all, who come together usually to perform in the way that is suddenly the new normal: in the digital world.

But on a recent day, eight of them, led by conductor John Masko, were live and in-person for us, playing parts of works by several composers at a socially distanced backyard gathering.

This is a rare chance to hear live music, of course, and for these medical musicians an opportunity to actually get together and play. For some of them, the music is also a kind of healing in a time of trauma.

One was violist Dr. Michael Cho, who’s been on the front lines of the pandemic.

Michael Cho: I saw a lot of really, really sick people. My specialty is seeing sick people. That part of it, I was used to. Just the number of people in that condition was just — it was just mind-boggling.

Jeffrey Brown: A pulmonary and critical care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Cho has been caring for patients most in need of ventilators to help them breathe.

Michael Cho: There is a lot of tragedy.

For example, one of the worst things, I think, about the pandemic is seeing family members. So, a husband and wife both come in. A woman and her nephew, they’re sick at the same time. And maybe they both succumb to the illness. I mean, those kinds of things are just horrible to think about.

And to have my colleagues and my co-workers and my friends and my family and music is what keeps me resilient through all this.

Jeffrey Brown: For many medical professionals like Michael Cho, music came before medicine, and continues to play an enormous role in their lives.

The past decade has seen a steady rise in the number of so-called medical orchestras all over the country, now numbering more than 20, non-professional, but very high-quality.

One of the oldest, founded in 1984 by members of the Harvard Medical School, is the Longwood Symphony Orchestra in Boston. Pediatrician Lisa Wong has served as its president and violinist.

Lisa Wong: I think the attention to detail and our training for looking for beauty and working hard to make that happen is the same between being a musician and being a doctor.

Jeffrey Brown: She’s now cared for several generations of children in the Boston area, and remains fascinated by the deep connections between music and medicine, the fact that so many doctors played instruments as children and still do, all explored in her book “Scales to Scalpels: Doctors Who Practice the Healing Arts of Music and Medicine.”

There’s the act of close listening to the strings of a fellow musician or the murmur of a patient’s heart. There’s the need for concentration and striving for excellence in both. There’s even neurological connectivity, she says. Playing music in childhood helps wire an information highway in the brain.

Lisa Wong: Once those highways are established, you can put science through that, you can put medicine through that. You develop the brain differently.

So, what the neuroscientists are finding is, the brain of a musician looks different than a brain of someone who hasn’t played music.

Jeffrey Brown: There’s also a growing effort to use their music to help patients directly.

During the pandemic, Longwood members have performed outside a number of local hospitals. And Wong helped form the Boston Hope Hospital Music project, medical and other musicians performing for COVID patients.

Now she says the group wants to find even more ways to help fellow front-line medical workers, including offering music lessons and performances.

Lisa Wong: Just offering them sort of an array of things that they can do to heal that way, and to get them a little bit away from just the day-to-day challenges of the medicine itself.

Jeffrey Brown: And why is that so needed now? What have you seen?

Lisa Wong: Exhaustion. Sadness. Hopelessness. And they want to be healing.

This is what post-traumatic stress is. So, we’re looking ahead that the next number of years, I think it’s going to take a long time for our profession to heal.

Jeffrey Brown: For now, the National Virtual Medical Orchestra is providing a select group from around the country a place to heal and connect with some larger purpose.

John Masko: When you work with a medical orchestra, you really get that perspective that we are here for spiritual fulfillment and we’re here to enjoy ourselves.

Jeffrey Brown: You feel that?

John Masko: I feel that because feel that, yes.

Jeffrey Brown: It was started this spring by 28-year-old John Masko, a son of two physicians, but not one himself, who’s worked with medical musicians as music director of the Providence Medical Orchestra.

It, like arts groups everywhere, shut down in the pandemic.

John Masko: I started to hear very quickly from people about how it was simultaneously happening that their stress levels were rising astronomically in their professional lives, and that the vital outlet they had for relieving that and for using a different part of their brain was now gone.

Jeffrey Brown: Masko has found a new way into producing in virtual space. He sends musicians a video of himself conducting a piece.

The individuals record themselves, send in their video, and then rework their parts based on Masko’s e-mail notes. Then the 60 individual voices are put together by professional audio and video producers.

John Masko: Groups like ours are really positioned to lead the way in innovating this new style of music-making, which, even when we get back to performing regular live music, can feed back into that and expand the sphere of music-making.

Jeffrey Brown: Raise your hand if you’re just happy to be playing music with a fellow human beings, playing music.

Woman: Two hands.

Jeffrey Brown: Two hands.

For now, these musicians are left with this kind of distanced gathering, along with a deep understanding of the connections between art and medicine, including when it’s the healers themselves in need.

Lisa Wong: It’s hard and it’s necessary to know that you also need to heal, to be able to become revitalized, so that you have enough energy to go back out.

That’s the whole thing about the arts that will revitalize you, restore faith in humanity, opportunity to really appreciate beauty. And once that’s filled, then you can give it back.

Jeffrey Brown: You’re alive again, in a sense.

Lisa Wong: Absolutely.

Jeffrey Brown: And there is nothing like live music for that.

For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown in Newton, Massachusetts.

Judy Woodruff: Thank you, Jeff.

And we love that these medical professionals can find healing in this way.

Yo-Yo Ma on the Artist’s Role in the Time of Covid-19

[After much of the country closed down, esteemed cellist Yo-Yo Ma put out a call for artists, especially musicians, to take up a role in the struggle against the pandemic and its consequences.  He especially focused on the issues of raising the spirits of Americans who were struggling under the health threat and the psychological burdens of being confined to their homes.

[On 13 March, the day after theaters and other entertainment venues in New York City were closed down, Ma took to social media with the mission: to share music that gives him comfort.  This gave birth to the project he dubbed “Songs of Comfort.”  Over the weeks and months that followed, PBS NewsHour aired several reports on this effort, including interviews with Ma. 

[I’ve collected these segments between 18 March and 21 July and am running them together on Rick On Theater in an effort to disseminate Ma’s worthy message.]

“YO-YO MA ON ENCOURAGING ‘SONGS OF COMFORT’ AMID GLOBAL CRISIS”

by Jeffrey Brown

[This interview of the cellist by arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown aired on PBS NewsHour on Wednesday evening, 18 March 2020.  It initiated the discussion of Ma’s project on NewsHour as part of the program’s Canvas segment, its ongoing coverage of arts and culture.]

Yo-Yo Ma, one of the world’s most renowned and beloved musicians, is trying to provide comfort in this time of crisis. Ma has been posting videos of himself performing short pieces and encouraging other musicians -- of all levels -- around the world to join him in offering “Songs of Comfort.” Ma joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss the project and play [Antonín] Dvorak.

Judy Woodruff: At a time of national and, indeed, global trauma, a leading artist offers us songs of comfort.

Jeffrey Brown has that for our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas.

Jeffrey Brown: He is one of the world’s most renowned and beloved musicians, and now he is reaching out in a new way in this current crisis.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma recently began posting videos of himself performing short pieces and songs that can speak to those most in need and to all of us.

Yo-Yo Ma joins me from his home in Massachusetts by Skype.

And, Yo-Yo, it’s nice to talk to you. Here we are. You are stuck at home like most of us, but you’re still playing. Tell us about this idea that you have, the project called Songs of Comfort.

Yo-Yo Ma: Well, this idea came by pretty much spontaneously.

I was in the office one day, and we were talking and said, you know, let’s do something, because let’s do something in this time that actually serves people’s needs.

And we thought that, somehow, music always has been comforting to me, this is what I do, and this is the best that I can offer. And I know many people are doing everything they can from what they know. And this is just something that I can do.

Jeffrey Brown: This is what you do.

I mean, in what sense — what’s your sense of what music or art can do? I mean, we talk about this all the time. People have real needs. We have just had a whole program talking about hospitals and medical needs and food and money, of course. What can music and art do?

Yo-Yo Ma: Well, I can tell you one thing.

When I was 19, I had a teacher who said, Yo-Yo, you haven’t found your voice.

And I said, OK. And so I kept looking for my voice. And I think my voice is in finding the needs of others and then representing them. And that’s — and so, everywhere I go, it’s always about finding what people are thinking, feeling, how they think about themselves in the world.

And if I can find something that they need, and if I can actually offer a little bit of something that is comforting, then that’s how I would define my job.

Jeffrey Brown: So here you are now playing and posting pieces, but it’s more than that, right? You want others to join in, to send in their own songs, and it doesn’t even have to be music.

Tell us about what you’re hoping will happen.

Yo-Yo Ma: Well, you know, what’s amazing is that what’s already happened is that, since just a couple of days ago, there are people who have posted from the Mayo Clinic. Two doctors have actually sung something.

The lead singer from a rock band, Mashrou Leila in Lebanon, actually put in a song. And two women from Ireland and Germany sang something on in sync, on — in troubled times.

And so the idea is music is for everyone. It’s not the practitioners doing music, but it’s something that does something for us. Now, a virus is something that travels globally. It knows no borders, no walls, no boundaries.

And music is something that actually looks into the inside, and that also knows [no] boundaries. And if we can actually express what is on our insides and show that, then this is the beginning of a deeper understanding of one another.

Jeffrey Brown: We want to join you, your organization. We at the “NewsHour” want to join and encourage people to send in their own videos to #SongsofComfort, post them on Twitter, or Instagram, Facebook, wherever.

And then what are we collecting? What are you hoping that we get?

Yo-Yo Ma: We’re collecting what is personal, what is true, what is trustworthy, what is community, because community is nothing, except what is based on trust.

And when you say something in music, it better be true, because, otherwise, it doesn’t communicate.

Jeffrey Brown: All right, so we’re going to do this together.

And I want to tell our audience, please post some videos, and we here at the “NewsHour,” we’re going to post — update this project as we can on digital and broadcast, Canvas, for our arts coverage as well, joining Yo-Yo Ma in this.

And I want to say thank you to you for doing this. And it’s a pleasure to be part of it with you.

And, before we go, Yo-Yo Ma plays Dvorak for us.

(MUSIC)

Jeffrey Brown: #SongsofComfort.

Yo-Yo Ma, thank you very much.

Yo-Yo Ma: Thank you so much, Jeffrey.

Judy Woodruff: Thank you, Yo-Yo Ma.

I can’t imagine anything more welcome at a time like this.

And, as Jeff pointed out, we hope that, if you have art to share, you will join us. Upload your videos to Twitter, to Instagram or Facebook using the hashtag #SongsofComfort.

We will be watching, and we may use them in the future on air and online at PBS.org/NewsHour.

[The musical portions of this broadcast can be heard on the video of the segment on the NewsHour website at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/yo-yo-ma-on-encouraging-songs-of-comfort-amid-global-crisis.  Other sources include YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wczq8RjxA9M.]  

*  *  *  *

“YO-YO MA CALLS FOR #SONGSOFCOMFORT AMID PANDEMIC. HERE’S HOW YOU CAN JOIN THE EFFORT”

by Joshua Barajas

[Joshua Barajas’s report below was aired on PBS NewsHour’s Canvas arts and culture segment on Tuesday evening, 24 March 2020.]

Yo-Yo Ma has brought joy to listeners for decades with his virtuosic musicianship. Now, he is using his music to offer some comfort to a global audience in the midst of a pandemic that has sparked widespread anxiety and pain.

He started posting videos of himself performing what he dubbed #SongsOfComfort on social media. Last week, he played a short piece — Antonín Dvořák’s “Going Home” — via Skype for the PBS NewsHour.

He encouraged people to create and share their own art from home during this time, and use the #SongsOfComfort hashtag on different social media platforms to showcase those creations.

Some songwriting legends have joined the chorus. James Taylor shared a clip of himself performing his 1977 song “Secret O’ Life” to his Instagram account, saying it’s a tune to “lift our spirits during challenging times.” Carole King tweeted a demo version of “Tapestry” cut “Way Over Yonder.” In their at-home live stream concert last week, Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls cited Yo-Yo Ma’s project — and shouted out the PBS NewsHour — before playing “Galileo.”

Hamed Sinno, lead singer of rock band Mashrou’ Leila, posted a series of Instagram videos of him singing “Not While I’m Around,” from Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” saying that the “lyrics make me warm inside.”

“Being forced to employ social distancing has really made me think about the value of community,” Sinno said in the Instagram caption. “Hoping you’re all staying sane and healthy, and doing whatever you can to protect the vulnerable communities around you.”

*  *  *  *

 “YO-YO MA’S MUSICAL EFFORT TO SHARE #SONGSOFCOMFORT AMID CORONAVIRUS”

by Jeffrey Brown, Anne Azzi Davenport. and Joshua Barajas

[The following brief PBS NewsHour report on some of the responses to Yo-Yo Ma’s appeal was broadcast on Wednesday night, 25 March 2020.[

Last week, the NewsHour joined master cellist Yo-Yo Ma in asking the public to join the #SongsOfComfort effort and contribute music both old and new. Chief arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown shares some of what we have received here – moments of respite and zen in the age of coronavirus. You can post your own offering on social media platforms using the hashtag #SongsOfComfort.

Jeffrey Brown: Yo-Yo Ma began his #SongsofComfort project with a performance of his own, and an appeal to our audience.

Yo-Yo Ma: We’re collecting what is personal, what is true, what is trustworthy, what is community, because community is nothing, except what is based on trust.

Jeffrey Brown: People of all kinds have responded, Paul Simon with his classic [“American Tune,”] Hamed Sinno, lead singer of the Lebanese band Mashrou’ Leila. The famed folk rock duo the Indigo Girls also answered the call [‘Galileo”].

And members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra found a creative way to perform while keeping social distance.

Most of all, ordinary people all around the country and the world created their own musical moments. Outside Chicago, a woman played for her neighbors, as is happening more and more.

In Omaha, Nebraska, 9-year-old Annabel Blake, her father and a family friend performed a traditional Irish folk song.

A man played a song for his granddaughters, wanting them, as he wrote, to feel good about themselves. And they did.

Dira Sugandi was joyful in Indonesia.

Two friends, one in Ireland the other in Germany, harmonized on a Beatles song. And from Copenhagen, pianist Niels Lan Doky shared jazz.

Perhaps most fitting and hopeful for the times, two Mayo Clinic doctors in a video posted by a new fan.

Just a few of the songs now being shared.

For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown.

*  *  *  *

“HOW YO-YO MA’S ‘SONGS OF COMFORT’ ARE INSPIRING MUSICAL COLLABORATION”

by Jeffrey Brown and Anne Azzi Davenport

 [This PBS NewsHour report from Jeffrey Brown, part of Canvas, the NewsHour’s arts and culture series, was broadcast on Wednesday evening, 13 May 2020.]

The ‘Songs of Comfort’ project world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma launched on social media continues to expand in new directions. Jeffrey Brown looks at the growing collaboration in these mini performances, as tough times bring people together through music -- and technology. It’s part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas.

Judy Woodruff: Finally tonight, our occasional look at the Songs of Comfort project that world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma launched on social media.

Jeffrey Brown looks at the growing collaboration in these mini-performances, as tough times bring people together through music and technology.

It’s part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas.

Jeffrey Brown: In a time of isolation, a desire to connect through music.

As the psychology of pandemic changes through the weeks, you can see that play out in the #SongsofComfort project through more and more collaborations.

That includes the man who started it all, Yo-Yo Ma, who recorded a distanced duet with celebrated West African singer Angelique Kidjo, and another with Syrian-born clarinetist Kinan Azmeh.

The urge to merge is often a family affair, as with this young mother and father in their Berlin, Germany, living room, their new baby adding a little percussion.

In Arizona, six women family members put the ’70s song “I’d Like to Teach the World [to Sing”] to multistringed accompaniment, joined by the whistling of the person capturing it all on camera.

And a violinist with the Washington, D.C.-area National Philharmonic sat down with her guitar-playing son for a piece by Astor Piazzolla.

There are also more elaborate cross-genre collaborations, a delightful Bach to the Barre breakfast scene created by musicians from the Toronto Symphony and dancers with the Canadian National Ballet, plus two children, who performed their roles to perfection.

Much older children at Potomac, Maryland’s St. Andrews Episcopal School sang, “Oh happy Day,” joined by alumni and faculty. And 24 student cellists from around the world managed to get together for a performance of [Camille] Saint-Saëns “The Swan.”

In Houston, members of the symphony, used to playing together on stage, created a virtual quartet. And while it can be a lonely time for many, technology allows another kind of quartet, all the parts performed by one individual.

Songs played alone, songs played together. And, as we saw in that Berlin living room, some things don’t change, the desire to share and maybe inspire the next generation.

For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown.

Judy Woodruff: Songs of Comfort, that has to continue after this pandemic.

*  *  *  *

“YO-YO MA’S HEARTFELT CALL TO ACTION TO ARTISTS DURING THE PANDEMIC”

by Isabelle Di Rita and Amna Nawaz

[PBS NewsHour aired the following Canvas arts and culture interview by correspondent Amna Nawaz with cellist Yo-Yo Ma  on Wednesday night, 29 July 2020.]

The coronavirus pandemic can make us feel small, or hopeless, but Yo-Yo Ma says artists, musicians especially, have a role in this crisis to help lift each other up.

Now is the best time to make a personal connection with an audience of one, the cellist said, “because as a musician, your job — our job — is to actually move one person at a time.”

Ma’s call to action for artists starts simple: Pick someone. Record yourself performing a song for them or making whatever art you’d like. Add a personal message. Hit send.

During this time of crisis, Ma has been providing solace through his #SongsOfComfort project, connecting people through music online. Despite a global pandemic putting a damper on live music, theater, or any type of performance, Ma believes it’s also a time when musicians, poets and painters can reflect on why and for whom they make art. Part of building our collective resilience in this crisis, Ma said, is “making sure that no matter what you do, you’re trying to do something in the service of somebody else.”

Ma is also releasing new music — recorded pre-pandemic — at a time when he and other musicians aren’t able to perform in front of a live audience. (A Taylor Swift concert still provides a different experience than listening to an album alone, Ma noted.) His new album, ”Not Our First Goat Rodeo,” is a collaboration with Americana musicians Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer and Stuart Duncan, nine years after the group recorded their first album together.

Ma spoke with the PBS NewsHour’s Amna Nawaz about what it’s like to release an album right now, the future of live performance in the COVID era, and why he encourages anyone to write, make music or create art at this time.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me a little bit about “Not Our First Goat Rodeo.” You brought the band back together after nine years. Why now?

When we first got together, we were so excited to be able to make music together in a way that is, in so many ways, ideal. Everybody has great respect for one another. Their egos are checked at the door because it’s total and creative fun. I think the musicians that I’m working with are some of the greatest people I’ve ever met, in terms of not only technical virtuosic ability, but head and heart. They’ve got both going so strong. Imagine working with people with very strong egos who actually all have their egos in the right place, not in front, and never picking on each other’s vulnerabilities, just willing to try everything with the highest standard and laughing all the way.

So, nine years later, we’re saying it’s “not our first goat rodeo,” meaning a sense of people coming together in a chaotic situation, but then finding a way through. And that’s kind of how music is made: You put so many jumbled thoughts, feelings and ideas together. I think we thought about doing this right after the first time and it took nine years to get us back together again, because everybody is so incredibly busy. But they nevertheless made time to make this album.

What’s it been like to introduce new music to the world at this time?

I think people are always thinking and doing things, whether they’re physically together or not. Yes, our lives are on hold. I’m at home, I’m with my wife every day. She looks at me in the morning, noon, night, sort of “still the same guy there,” not going away. It’s kind of a blessing because life is never like this. But we then use what’s available to us — zooming, making music, and sending music around — because that’s one of the things people need, and I see that in the next not-such-a-long-period of time, the idea of drive-in concerts. People are experimenting with that idea. I know there was a comedian who actually did stand-up comedy in New Jersey for a thousand cars. Instead of applause, people just honked and flashed their lights because stand-up comedians need an audience, a live audience. The idea is we want to be together. We can find ways to do it. Drive-ins are actually part of our culture. A friend of mine, we’re thinking of going on flatbed trucks and going into communities and trying things out. But it’s possible. And I think the four of us [for “Not Our First Goat Rodeo”] will do live performances, or we might do things online. I think whatever we do, the attempt will be made to reach out to people because music is a service. I think we need it, we need each other. So if people want it, we will be there in one form or another.

Whether it’s a giant concert hall or a small, more intimate venue, do you as a performer miss being in front of people and presenting them with that music and watching how they receive it?

Tell you the truth, I think that I’m so used to performing in front of live audiences, but also so used to recording — and I think the two are slightly different — but I have to say that being live allows us to use all of our senses. So music is energy, it moves air molecules, and it touches our skin — we see it. We feel it. So much of music is physical, but also ephemeral — the sixth sense that we have about one another, the chemistry we feel for one another. My wife always says if she feels I’m nervous, she immediately gets nervous in the audience because she has that tactile reaction. And you go to a Taylor Swift concert, and you see people just going crazy because she’s close by, and that kind of chemistry is palpable. And that doesn’t happen virtually, even though you get physically, in terms of sound, the same things, and you can get a visual, but you can’t feel the atmosphere. And so, I think in that sense, it’s like sports events. We’re going to see live sports events. But is it the same as being in the stadium?

We should mention that over the summers you do perform at Tanglewood in Western Massachusetts and all of those concerts series have been moved online now.

Yes.

So for you to perform in this way, is there something different that you do to prepare or the way that you present the music? I mean, what is that experience like for you?

I think intention is everything. Again, we pick up not just words from people or sounds from people, we pick up tiny little cues, you know, body language. I’m sure you’re so aware of, as a person who is broadcasting, what the effect of what you say or act or move has on the person that’s listening to you. And I think I don’t do that very well, but I try to actually focus as intensely as I can because these things — the whole idea of learning technique for cellists like me — is to transcend it so that you don’t think about technique. You’re thinking about, what is this person saying? What is the meaning of what someone would say?

Long term, are you worried about a decline in support for the arts? At a time when a lot of people’s priorities are shifting to much more immediate needs, right? Especially at this time, we’ve seen efforts in other countries like the UK government, for example, offering billions of dollars to support the arts to make sure that they remain supported. Are you worried about that here in the United States?

I think at one level, absolutely. There is the crisis that is hitting everybody in terms of who does not have a job. And you can only have a certain amount of bailouts, and we have to pay for it. So what is it? What service do musicians, poets or actors or illustrators or designers have on people’s well-being? I’m not worried in the long term because if the economy is there to create value, culture and the arts are there to create values and to sustain values. And so, when we’re in crisis, what everybody is asking us to do is to be resilient. And what creates resilience? It’s when we go back to our basic values. And the values of making sure you tell the truth. Making sure that whatever you do, you are building trust. And then to making sure that no matter what you do, you’re trying to do something in the service of somebody else because that’s why you’re on Earth.

So, if we actually — all of us — follow those values, I don’t worry about a thing. This is a moment where actually we can take stock, and that’s why people are saying we need a reset. That’s why people are saying that this is actually a good moment to consider what kind of world we actually want to live in, and to serve certain needs, things need to be changed. Well, what does it take? How do I give from substance to actually create a better world in this great American experiment?

In this moment when there are so many people who are going through that crisis, I’d like you to talk to the musicians out there, the ones who were working gig to gig before the pandemic, who have seen all those gigs dry up, who don’t know if this is sustainable moving forward. What is it you would say to them in this moment?

What I would say is that for anybody who owns a smartphone — and I hope most musicians do — is to actually practice the “one-on-one principle,” because as a musician, your job — our job — is to actually move one person at a time. So pick a person that you know, or maybe you don’t know, but let’s say that you know, that may need what you do as a service. Maybe it’s someone who’s healthy, maybe someone who’s ill, maybe it’s a child who has been stuck at home. Pick what you think is the right thing to play for them. Make it personal, because it’s always personal, and record it with a little message and send it to them.

I would start there and build from there, because if all musicians did that, if all actors would just say to someone, “You know, I thought of a poem for you.” “I’m a painter. You know what, I just drew something for you. Because I know you love this color. I know you’ve always talked about this thing, and so I just thought I made this little drawing for you. Would you treasure that?” I hope so. I hope the answer is yes, because that’s the first principle of music. Your first principles in science, the first principles in everything. But now we’re getting down to the first principles of what you and I can share together. And it’s that important. That’s how we rebuild our humanity. Yes, we can go abstract and say, “Yes, we need policy, [or] whatever,” that’s systemic, that’s long term. That’s 30 years. But people want to do things now. So create the value of that one-on-one for each musician, for each actor, for each poet, for each artist to say, “Pick a person. Pick a person a day.”

That was such a beautiful answer. I am so sorry. And I know why that made me tear up when you were talking about it. That was so lovely.

Because it’s personal.

It absolutely is, it is.

[“Beyond the CANVAS” showcases some of the nation’s leading cultural creators — musicians, playwrights, comedians, among many others — who show us how they turn their visions of the world into art.]

*  *  *  *

“YO-YO MA ON HOW MUSICIANS CAN ‘REBUILD OUR HUMANITY’ DURING THE PANDEMIC”

by Joshua Barajas and Amna Nawaz

[Amna Nawaz and Joshua Barajas’s report below was broadcast on PBS NewsHour’s Canvas arts and culture segment on Friday evening, 31 July 2020.]

When Yo-Yo Ma was asked what he’d say to musicians who had seen their gigs dry up due to the coronavirus pandemic, he said music makers and other artists can act on the “one-on-one principle.”

“As a musician, your job — our job — is to actually move one person at a time,” Ma told the PBS NewsHour’s Amna Nawaz.

Ma said to pick a person that you may or may not know — maybe it’s someone who’s ill, stuck at home, or having to work during the crisis — who “may need what you do as a service.” He suggested that a musician play something for this person, record themselves performing it, along with adding a personal message, and then send it to them.

Ma said artists can build from that — reaching out to one another during this crisis.

“That’s how we rebuild our humanity,” he added.