![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Bill-McDevitt-side-and-inset.jpg\")
<\/a>William McDevitt, acting assistant principal bassist in the Toledo Symphony and a UToledo graduate student, proudly wore his Rocket face mask onstage, but is relieved the orchestra returned to playing virtual and limited-capacity, in-person performances.<\/p><\/div>\n
Dr. Michael Boyd, professor of music in the College of Arts and Letters, said he will always remember the first time he performed Vivaldi on the harpsichord while wearing a face mask in front of vacant seats, knowing the audience was watching from home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe return of performances in the fall was a morale booster for the community as well as the orchestra members after a bleak time,\u201d said Boyd, who plays piano, celeste and harpsichord with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. \u201cBut we missed looking out into the audience and seeing the seats filled. Even now to be able to sit onstage with a group of musicians has been very uplifting. When a \u2018normal\u2019 season happens again, being able to be onstage with a full orchestra\u00a0and\u00a0seeing a full house will be a cause for celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Careful planning went into the selection of pieces when personnel was reduced and on rotation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were in survival mode since strings played most of the concerts without woodwinds and brass,\u201d said William McDevitt, acting assistant principal bassist in the Toledo Symphony and a UToledo graduate student working toward a master\u2019s degree in music education. \u201cAlso, we were downsized in personnel. For example, instead of playing with the usual six basses, it was only one or two basses.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDevitt, who proudly wore his Rocket face mask onstage, is relieved the orchestra returned this month to a hybrid model, offering both virtual and limited-capacity, in-person performances.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerforming with a no in-person audience left me feeling empty,\u201d said McDevitt. \u201cWe express our gratitude for them through our music. Performances and audience members are a two-way street, and not having one there with you due to the pandemic was very disheartening.\u00a0During this terrible time, we need them and they need us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough this crisis, our vision has been to serve our community with live performances,\u201d said Zak Vassar, president and CEO of the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA). \u201cFortunately, with the launch of our TAPA Streaming platform back in September, we have been able to continue presenting top-notch performances, even without an in-person audience. We\u2019re excited to make our return to the concert hall in these next few months and welcome our patrons back to a sense of normalcy, with safety as our top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>Nancy Lendrim is one of nearly a dozen UToledo music faculty members who, as part of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, helped create joy and togetherness during the coronavirus pandemic through the symphony’s virtual performances.<\/p><\/div>\n
UToledo music instructor and violinist Dr. Junqi \u201cSophie\u201d Tang\u00a0hasn\u2019t played with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra since last April because of the reduced orchestra.<\/p>\n
Tang, however, came up with creative ways to teach from afar to keep music alive for UToledo students during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom my private studio, I provided a virtual learning experience for our students who had to stay home,\u201d Tang said. \u201cTo keep them motivated, I prepared the students to compete in virtual competitions and we won a few top prizes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Qilong Wei, a second-year music student at UToledo, won second prize and Zeyu Chen, a master\u2019s student, won third prize at the 6th<\/sup> Hong Kong International Music Festival Competition.<\/p>\n After other music festivals canceled because of the pandemic, Tang created the three-week online HanTong Music Festival.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents got to perform for the world’s leading performing artists through Zoom,\u201d Tang said. \u201cIt’s a great way to bring students together with top teachers in the United States and China to inspire and encourage our students.\u201d<\/p>\n Boyd said teaching piano during the shutdown was challenging because \u201cthere was a lot of detail that phone, tablet and computer microphones could not convey.\u201d<\/p>\n Since his instrument does not involve an air stream, Boyd had the opportunity to teach in-person in the fall.<\/p>\n \u201cI gave each student the option of streaming or face-to-face,\u201d Boyd said. \u201cEvery one of them chose face-to-face. Pianos were distanced, surfaces wiped down after each use and I alternated rooms after each lesson to give time for air circulation.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Lee Heritage, professor and interim chair of the Department of Music, is proud of the \u201csilver linings\u201d for students this year, such as the performers who honed their skills to create recorded performances and the recitalists who learned the value of excellent preparation when time together with other musicians was limited by safety concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a composition student whose \u2018pandemic project\u2019 was to create a piece for virtual symphonic orchestra, and our choir created musically compelling virtual performances that truly were \u2018music for our time,\u2019 \u201d Heritage said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been nurturing the flame of live performance and building our skills \u2014 eagerly awaiting the time we can rejoin our audiences in the Glass Bowl, in Doermann Theater and in our beloved Recital Hall. When we do, we will bring a renewed appreciation for the way that live music brings our community together.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch the 2020 UToledo Music Showcase on the College of Arts and Letter\u2019s YouTube page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As part of a reduced orchestra last fall, about a dozen music faculty members and other musicians played to a mostly empty Peristyle Theater at the Toledo Museum of Art, live-streaming their concerts worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":875,"featured_media":65248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,1,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65246"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65249,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65246\/revisions\/65249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>