California’s “Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale has cancelled all concerts through the end of 2020 and will instead present 2020/VIRTUAL, a robust series of online programs,” writes Anthony Brown in Wednesday’s (7/8) Musical America (subscription required). “Music Director Richard Egarr will headline one of the first of these, LIVE From Amsterdam, in a solo recital at the keyboard and with guest artists live from sacred and secular spaces in Amsterdam. The ensemble’s chorale director and scholar-in-residence Bruce Lamott will lead Musical Explorations, a series of interview podcasts with scholars and musicians. Popular alternative concert series PBO SESSIONS moves online, as does the monthly interactive Jews & Music and New Music for Old Instruments in which Egarr talks to living composers writing expressly for period instruments. ‘Regardless of all that’s happening with this pandemic,’ noted Egarr in a press release, ‘there’s so much music still to discover and current circumstances don’t change that.’ … Added the PBO’s executive director Courtney Beck, ‘What’s happening here is only partially about the pandemic; it’s about changing the course and tone of how an orchestra and its conductor interacts with its people. And we are . . . keeping historically-informed performance alive.’ ”
