“The live-music industry has, for obvious reasons, been especially hard hit by the Covid-19 crisis,” writes Rob Brunner in the August issue of Washingtonian magazine (Washington, D.C.). “To find out what that’s been like and what happens next, we checked in with three key leaders in the area’s concert scene: Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter, Washington Performing Arts president and CEO Jenny Bilfield, and IMP chief operating officer Donna Westmoreland, who runs the company behind venues such as the Anthem, the 9:30 Club, and Merriweather Post Pavilion…. ‘It’s a daily roller coaster,’ says Rutter.… Q: The Kennedy Center and IMP [are] both talking about doing some new, smaller-scale concerts in your larger spaces. Rutter: Imagine a jazz trio or a single comedian or a string quartet … with the audience sitting on the stage…. It may be that we also do some programs that we capture and share digitally, exclusively…. Q: What is giving you hope right now? Bilfield: So many important moments in history have been captured by artists. The arts show that there’s resilience: There is every obstacle to creating art, and yet art is being created and art is being shared. Art is a portal into how we’re experiencing this.”
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