Today’s IRIS ORCHESTRA MUSIC MINUTE is a little different. Because we are different, ever since “coronavirus” became the center of everyone’s waking moments. We find ourselves in a surreal period in our collective experience, here and everywhere around the globe.
Together, we are up against the unseen threat of COVID-19. In the past, we have faced wars, unfathomable acts of violence, national mourning, natural disasters and 9/11. But in the case of each of those challenges, we have always prevailed by coming together. This feels different because, to fight this contagion, to protect ourselves and everyone around us, we must be isolated, and to practice “social distancing”. So everything is on hold, and right now, we can’t say when the end game will come.
Our concerts are canceled, schools are canceled, religious services, travel plans, work schedules — even, for many among us, the security of our daily lives — all canceled. But we are not canceling our need for one another, and we are not canceling our connection to everything that makes up our world. Less than two weeks ago, on our Iris Orchestra program at GPAC, we played Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”— a defining American work about our sense of community. That community remains. Music remains. We will get through this — apart, yet in a way, brought even closer together by this shared uncertainty and fear, and by a conviction to be there for one another. We will continue to wash our hands — often — and we will be careful. And eventually, we will be on the other side of this, and we will come together again, when music will seem more urgent and more necessary than ever.