The Score | A Shot of Music

As more Americans are inoculated against COVID-19, orchestra musicians are doing something many of them have not been able to do for a year: play music for an in-person audience. And it’s happening at mass vaccination sites. In March, Yo-Yo Ma arrived for his second vaccine dose at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, Massachusetts with his cello and gave an impromptu performance in the post-shot waiting area. In early April, musicians from the Henderson Symphony Orchestra performed at the Las Vegas Convention Center vaccine clinic; Executive Director Sarah O’Connell said she hopes the orchestra’s presence calms patients. In April and May, Iowa’s Quad City Symphony Orchestra collaborated with the Rock Island County Health Department to create “Vaccine Variations,” hour-long performances by individual orchestra musicians at the vaccination site at the Camden Centre in Milan, Illinois; patients receive a discount code for QCSO performances. This winter, the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina hosted free drive-through COVID-19 testing and vaccinations in collaboration with Blue Ridge Health and the Transylvania County Health Department. And in the U.K., Salisbury Cathedral’s spectacular interior was transformed into a vaccination center; the church worked with the National Health Service on the COVID-19 vaccination program.