What will Orchestras in a post-coronavirus age look like?

It took time for the orchestral world to realise the enormity of the situation, but now the problems associated with the Covid-19 pandemic are coming uncomfortably thick and fast – among them cash flow, practicalities, opaque guidelines and the minefield of whether blowing a horn is more dangerous than hitting a drum.

Soon enough, things might start looking normal again – almost. There will be concerts played and operas staged, with strange new parameters of social distance, restricted catering and shortened programmes. This is best seen as a steadying of the ship. When we finally start to do things like we always did, the long-term fallout of the crisis will come into sharp focus. For our industry, that’s probably about a year away.

Commentators of all backgrounds have been busy telling us that the crisis will accelerate changes that were already coming our way even more than it will alter the course we thought we were on. That is especially true of the classical music sector and within that, orchestras. The good news is that the post-Covid orchestra already exists; there are models we can learn from.

The most robust modern orchestras in the year 2020, before the pandemic hit, were those that considered their locality and its needs before entertaining strange and dubious ideas of their place in the international hierarchy. Actively address the former, and the latter could well look after itself, as the Los Angeles Philharmonic has proved. General interest, box office health and political buy-in all come from your work on the ground. Contrary to all the chat about touring, refocusing on roots and locality does not preclude international touring and can actually make it more valuable – taking a distinctive, individual product around the world rather than another anonymous symphony orchestra that wishes it was the Vienna Philharmonic.

In practical terms, refocusing on the ‘local’ means reflecting the city in programming and staffing: commissioning or resurrecting music from local composers, relating to amateur ensembles, nurturing grass-roots players and conductors that might eventually join the payroll and breaking the peripatetic merry-go-round which means every orchestra in the world receives the same conveyer belt of soloists. Employing a chief conductor who has the imagination and commitment to move to the same city as his or her musicians is essential and will cut costs (this, hopefully, will become a new normal over time). Ending the self-defeating practice of importing a foreign guest conductor every week – often not a big enough figure to be a box office draw – will allow orchestras to build more meaningful relationships with conductors, inviting the audience in.

In many parts of the world, the lockdown reminded us how deeply societies respond to music and feel they need it. In the Swedish city of Malmö, newly-installed chief conductor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Robert Trevino, made a last-minute decision to stay with his orchestra throughout March, April and much of May, lobbying politicians to ensure it could keep playing. For the first eight weeks of the mainland European lockdown (in which Sweden didn’t take part), the MSO continued playing its weekly Thursday concerts to an empty hall in a gesture of sustenance from Malmö to the world. Concerts were broadcast, but a startling proportion of locals tuned in.

The post-Covid orchestra will be more aware of its social obligations and more able to respond in moments of crisis like this one. Trevino spells it out starkly. ‘We need to be much quicker about seeing a need and filling it,’ he says; ‘you can’t plan for a crisis, but you can be there to grieve and to celebrate with people and to be a part of their lives.’

Orchestras vastly increase their reach when responding to local events, as the New York Philharmonic’s post 9/11 performances proved. Further north from Malmö, the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra consciously leaves gaps in its programme in order that works can be inserted or commissioned to reflect the mood or local events in-the-moment; sometimes, a town needs a Brahms Requiem more than it needs a Shostakovich Symphony No 10, but you can’t know that two years in advance. Greater flexibility in planning – which also ties into an increased use of local guest musicians – also pays off when a global pandemic rears is head.

Fundamental to the idea of ‘presence’ is the redrawing of the social contract that exists between orchestras, the public bodies that fund them (to varying degrees) and audiences (potential as well as existing). Jasper Parrott, of the agency Harrison Parrott, believes the classical music sector will need ‘a much enhanced and improved level of advocacy, and engagement with the political process’ in the years following the crisis – years which he believes will see some orchestras ‘not come out of this on the other side.’

For Trevino, the process has to be focussed on populations as well as politicians: the reconnection of institutions like the Malmö Symphony Orchestra with the citizens who, according to the Scandinavian model, fund it to the tune of 80%. ‘It’s not really about what you’re programming, it’s about the places are you are going to, how you are making yourself accessible,’ he says; ‘it’s as simple as this: if I have not made myself known to the hospital cleaner, or the person who lays the asphalt on the road, I have not succeeded in my job. They don’t have to come to a concert; they need to see that there is every possibility for them to join and participate in something that they see as theirs – that they are welcomed and that they feel no impediment.’

There is the option, of course, to be even more proactive. Five years ago the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen moved into a school in a rough part of the town, where its musicians rehearse in full view of pupils with whom they also eat lunch. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has since followed suit; it is far easier to make the case for funding – and find supplementary sources – when arrangements like this are in place. 

There are less drastic ways in which orchestras can make themselves indispensible. ‘You can make a powerful argument that there is going to be a tremendous issue with mental health post-Covid and [music] is one of the ways of engaging effectively with that problem,’ says Parrott. Taking the idea of engagement down to its simplest level, British orchestras might take a leaf out of the books of their Scandinavian counterparts and knit themselves into the fabric of the social calendar. Civic celebrations, market days, Christmas Lights switch-ons and memorial ceremonies should all be occasions on which civic orchestras are making their presence felt and demonstrating the unifying power of the music the play.

The post-Covid orchestra will diversify its activities, not narrow them. It will be ready to play anywhere, and learn from the experience. It will have put the digital lessons of the lockdown months to good use, proving the breadth of its repertoire and the skill and humour of its members. Most importantly, it will strive every day to assure its locality that it exists for them, is a resource for them and can better their lives.

In seizing the initiative in Malmö, Trevino turned himself and his orchestra into a potent symbol during the crisis. But it was as much about self-preservation as societal sustenance. ‘We make the case for our funding by asking what the world will look like without classical music,’ says Trevino; ‘some people will come away from this period and say, “a world without classical music looks just fine, actually.” As such, some orchestras are going to get a very stark awakening.’