Long after churches, schools and theaters reopen, the choirs that have inhabited them are likely to remain silent.There is no safe way for singers to rehearse as a group until there is a vaccine and a 95 percent-effective treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and it could be two years before both happen, a national panel of music and medical experts told choral directors this week. That message, delivered in a webinar on Tuesday night, sent shockwaves across the global music community.
As soon as he heard about it, Maine-based choral director Robert Russell corresponded with a colleague in Kentucky to compare notes. “We were both disconsolate. It was a sobering and staggering report that finally brings home the severity of this crisis,” said Russell, music director of ChoralArt and a retired University of Southern Maine vocal professor.
This week’s news will impact every church choir, community chorus, vocal ensemble, musical theater and opera company, he said, because proper singing requires vocalists to push the air from their lungs out into the performance space. “In singing, we teach athletic breathing. Of all the things I say to singers in rehearsals, the phrase ‘move the air’ is one that I am constantly referencing. You always want to be moving the air and always have the feeling the air is moving forward, so the phrase you are singing has forward motion,” he said.
However, "social distancing" regulations currently in effect prohibit more than x in the nave including the choir, and in any case, if multiple masses are held to accommodate as many people as possible, there won't be much music anyhow.
But this reflects the overall burden of questionable "social distancing" regulations, which are likely to remain in effect for many months after other restrictions are lifted -- "until there's a vaccine", blah blah blah. I think the inevitable remedy will be for citizens and local authorities to disregard such policies if they're promulgated by state health departments.
