New technology serves old music well during COVID-19
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The crucial priority is maintaining the organization’s staff, and thus its ability to adapt nimbly to changing circumstances.
The concert-going public may not realize the full impact of draconian cutbacks and layoffs. Beyond stress and financial hardship for all involved, institutional memory is lost, and morale suffers among those still employed. In the arts, out of sight can equal out of mind, and then out of business.
Fortunately, EMV has gained generous government funding to cover staff salaries during the crisis.
And — in the category of good news in bad times, because the majority of the necessary funds were raised before the COVID-19 crisis began — EMV has recently signed a contract with an instrument builder for a copy of an 1819 fortepiano similar to one owned by Beethoven, scheduled to arrive in winter 2021. It’s an exemplary demonstration of how to keep craftsmen at work and projects in readiness for better days.
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