Normally, these blog posts are going to be on material that I’m researching, or teaching, or just thinking about. But I feel that I must first at least acknowledge the current situation that remains ongoing around the globe.
There are a lot of adjectives flying around at present, to describe the times in which we live. Words like unprecedented (unprecedented times), and overwhelmed (The NHS will be overwhelmed), and plunged (plunged into another lockdown), through to words that are rather more unrepeatable, so I won’t. Though I may have yelled them at a wall fairly often over the last eighteen months.
And of course, it’s a particularly tough time for the arts. The disjunct between the complete closure of all live performance, and the enormous role of online performance in keeping morale high during lockdowns of varying degrees, in different countries, is clear wherever one turns. On one hand, arts courses face financial cuts from the current UK government that are often unsustainable; on the other hand, the leader of that government is at ease with quoting song lyrics in a party conference speech. Hmm, could it possibly be that an art form offered a way of saying something that nothing else comes close to doing?
There was an enormous amount of online musical activity, of varying types and levels, but all driven by the same need to communicate. I watched some of the live feeds from opera houses around the world, from Wigmore Hall, from living rooms and kitchens. My whole family watched the Epica Omega concert, and I saw the same need in that band as I did in classical musicians – a longing to be back with a live audience, that feeds the performers, but also being lost in the enjoyment of being back in a studio with one’s musical collaborators.
Let’s skip over the fact that the arts bring in billions to the UK economy for now; I’m talking about what gives our lives meaning. What’s the point of economic gain, if it doesn’t make our lives more fulfilled? Even the word entertainment isn’t the fluffy luxury that many in power assume. It comes from the Old French word entretenir, meaning “to hold together, to support,” in other words, the communication that happens between artists and their audiences, between artists and each other, is fundamental to our relationships, to our livelihoods, and even to our existence.
Nowhere was this clearer than watching students at the Royal Academy of Music come back together after so many months of sitting at home, unable to meet another musician. Piano accompanists who had been making backing tracks for singers, singers who had to sing down a Zoom camera and try to make eye contact with a blinking light, orchestral players who watched a split screen and tried to time their entry to allow for a technological delay, they all got to walk back into a room together and make live music. The delight and excitement was almost tangible, the smiles being cast at each other as sound filled the rooms once more were constant. Of course, it’s not all a straight line back into the thick of things. There are anxieties, and uncertainties, and moments of friction. But that’s life too, and after all, music encompasses everything, not just the glorious. As the words of Laura Farnell’s choral work In Praise of Music says, “awake my voice, awake my soul and sing!”
It's great to be back. I hope we get to stay.