The Score | Spread Out

To stay healthy during the pandemic, musicians are rehearsing and performing far apart. And even “sold-out” performances can look sparse, as orchestras limit audience size to keep everyone safe. This summer, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (right) commissioned Anthony Barfield to compose a work paying tribute to New York City and its people. The September 1 virtual premiere of Barfield’s Invictus featured fifteen brass players from across Lincoln Center’s campus—the MET Orchestra Musicians, New York Philharmonic, Juilliard School, Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York City Ballet Orchestra, and Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra—and is said to be the first time musicians from all those organizations performed together. Barfield conducted the socially distanced performance, which includes elements of classical, gospel, jazz, and hip hop, and is available on demand at LincolnCenter.org/Invictus. Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (above right) musicians began testing a new “Covid-style” rehearsal set-up at Music Hall with Music Director Louis Langrée in August. The Colorado Symphony performed a sold-out concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, on July 28. Small ensembles of Seattle Symphony musicians performed in an empty Benaroya Hall in a concert for the orchestra’s streaming Seattle Symphony Live site.