THE FIRST PIVOT.

I remember reading an article in early March posted by a fellow musician with a comment that asked, “what are you doing as a musician to ready your work for social distancing?”

I wanted to roll my eyes in denial of what was coming, but deep inside I was beginning to panic. Nothing had officially dropped from my/our schedule yet, but orchestras were beginning to cancel tours, and I knew it was coming.

I’ve never been one to like change. This summer, in the midst of the Front Yard Concerts that were to come, I loved doing a program for each home that was essentially the same – until the guys started protesting that they wanted to change things up. I’m someone who could eat the same food most days of the week and be happy (if it tastes good, of course)! So when it comes to a fundamental shift in our work as musicians, I was neither prepared nor willing to give it a go.

But when the Stay-At-Home orders began, and our schedule was wiped clean into summer, I scrambled. Zoom concerts, YouTube playlists, custom recordings (on an iPad with no external mic, mind you)… it was all on the table. At one point, I printed 5 full pages of names and numbers for senior living facilities from West Virginia to Indiana and cold-called for hours until a handful of them would purchase custom YouTube concerts.

In the midst of those dark days, there were rays of light shining – the friends, former students, and even wedding clients contacting to say they’d like me to record a playlist for their work day, or their Friday-night-at-home pizza night… The generosity and support of those who still wanted to find a way to keep music alive, even if it wasn’t professionally recorded or mastered, was astounding and special.

Looking back at those weeks in photos is difficult in a way – it represents the unrelenting uncertainty of that time, in the first few weeks of the pandemic. But it also reflects the moment of the shift – things turned and, I suspect, they won’t ever return to what they were…