Author: Joanna Bettelheim

“On Thursday, New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts announced that it was canceling all of the summer performances and activities it presents, including … a three-week outdoor dance party with live bands called Midsummer Night Swing, the classical music-focused Mostly Mozart Festival and … Lincoln Center Out of Doors,” writes Anastasia Tsioulcas on Thursday (4/9) at National Public Radio. “Lincoln Center’s cancellation of its summer offerings is also something of a marker for the hard decisions being faced right now by performing arts institutions and other arts organizations across the country due to the pandemic…. Lincoln Center hosts many of the world’s top artists, who are invited months and even years before their performance dates. With no end in sight to the restrictions on public gatherings … Lincoln Center’s decision to cancel its summer may be a harbinger for culturally quiet months ahead in New York City and elsewhere.” Lincoln Center said in a statement that “it is our intention, when it is safe again to gather in person, to stage a free pop-up festival in celebration of our great city, and the selfless first responders and healthcare workers who are giving so much during this crisis.”

On April 8, Lincoln Center launched a new digital initiative, Lincoln Center at Home, featuring pop-up classrooms on Facebook Live, short concerts for family audiences, archival and livestreamed performances in multiple genres, and more.

“The National Endowment for the Arts has released guidelines for arts organizations craving a share of the $75 million in federal stimulus funding earmarked for the arts from the so-called CARES Act (the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) estimated to cost $2.2 trillion,” writes Chris Jones in Wednesday’s (4/8) Chicago Tribune. “A wide variety of non-profit organizations can apply for a share of the money … including ‘arts organizations, local arts agencies, statewide assemblies of local arts agencies, arts service organizations’ … But all applicants … must be previous NEA award recipients from the past four years, presumably making it faster for the agency to verify and validate those who apply. In the Chicago area, those recipients include … the American Indian Center, Inc., the Chicago Architecture Foundation [and] Chicago Sinfonietta…. The NEA also said it intends to give preference to awards that ‘will impact a broad constituency.’ … The NEA’s applicant portal will be open between April 27 and May 4, with awards anticipated in June. Separately, the National Endowment for the Humanities said it … has received its $75 million in ‘supplemental funding to assist cultural institutions and humanists affected by the coronavirus pandemic,’ also as part of the CARES Act.”

In Texas, ROCO (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra) has released a virtual orchestra performance of Anthony DiLorenzo’s Anthem of Hope, initially commissioned in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. In the new performance, ROCO’s 39 musicians each recorded their solo parts in their homes on their cell phones. Houston-based Blueprint Film Co. edited the musicians’ individual parts together to create one video, which the orchestra says is meant to honor “all who are on the frontlines of the pandemic: the doctors, nurses, scientists, and healthcare workers; grocery, pharmacy, and restaurant employees; educators and childcare workers; delivery, agriculture, manufacturing, and technology professionals; and all essential employees.” The Anthem of Hope video and a behind-the-scenes video are posted at ROCO’s YouTube page. ROCO is continuing its ongoing weekly broadcasts of past concert livestreams, which it has done for the past three years.

“Kenneth Wentworth, founder and chairman of the artist management firm Jonathan Wentworth Associates, Ltd., named for his son, died on March 22 in Washington, D.C.,” writes Nicholas Beard in Wednesday’s (4/1) Musical America (subscription required). “He was 92. A pianist who studied under Irwin Freundlich at the Julliard School, he and his wife Jean had a piano four-hand team that toured world-wide, commissioned new music, and recorded regularly. They continued to perform together into their 80s. He was a much-admired teacher and chaired the music department at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, serving on the faculty for 40 years. He founded his firm in 1978, initially focusing on chamber music and overseeing the tours of the Borodin Trio. The company is now in its fourth decade, with a roster of 25 instrumentalists, conductors, and chamber groups, in addition to a number of special projects.”

“Where do we turn to nourish our souls during what can feel like a dark, fearful time?” writes Kate Hatmaker in last Sunday’s (3/22) San Diego Union-Tribune. Hatmaker is a violinist with the San Diego Symphony and executive and artistic director of the San Diego-based music group Art of Elan. “How many of us pause to reflect on the possibility that standing in line at Trader Joe’s might represent one of the last opportunities—for a while anyway—for a shared human experience? … Art of Elan’s … recent concert at the San Diego Museum of Art saw 59 concertgoers actually show up in the rain for an intimate evening of beautiful and transportive music…. It was to be our last opportunity for the foreseeable future to commune with our listeners through music…. I [recently] called up … our local Costco to ask if I could bring my violin and set up outside the store somewhere to bring the music of Bach to the line of panic-stricken people just waiting to get in. So … let’s not forget to throw open our windows and doors once in a while. We might hear our neighbors singing, or perhaps witness a strolling musician.”

“As the COVID-19 disease has escalated, turning New York into a crisis epicenter, … what was once a routine monthly call among 34 arts and cultural organizations that receive significant money from the city has ballooned into a daily emergency call-in with as many as 170 anxious arts administrators and advocates,” write Peter Marks and Geoff Edgers in Tuesday’s (3/31) Washington Post. “It’s just one measure of the war-room response to the most serious threat to music, theater and art in New York since—well, no one seems to know what in history compares to this shutdown and its open-ended timeline.… A group of private philanthropies … has collaborated on a $75 million Covid-19 Response and Impact Fund for New York arts groups.… General manager Peter Gelb estimates losses for the Metropolitan Opera at $60 million; New York Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, Deborah Borda, puts the acclaimed orchestra’s losses at $10 million…. Along with all the anxiety, you hear … a restatement of faith in eternal artistic values…. ‘The arts are such a human need,’ says Henry Timms, president and chief executive of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. ‘They help us find ourselves, and they help us find other people.’ ”