Following a case of Covid in the orchestra and the postponement of both their Duet and the Pearl Fishers productions, plus the revamping of the final CPO concert in the upcoming season, the CPO have become adept at handling the challenges of streaming writes PETA STEWART.
You might think filming a concert, fixing a section you’re not happy with, editing it in a couple of hours, loading it on a streaming platform and selling thousands of tickets sounds straightforward, but it’s far from that!
First of all Covid restrictions change, and then there’s the discovery of a Covid case – the most recent meant that the orchestra musicians had to go into isolation. So, The Pearl Fishers was cancelled. Then the reduction to 50 in a gathering meant that the Duet Gala was postponed, and of course it meant a change to the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra’s final Winter Season programme on 30 June 2021. The orchestra had to ensure there are only 50 people at any one time in the hall, including musicians, conductor and video crew.
Then there’s the orchestra itself. Social distancing has meant many things – one of which is that musicians can no longer share desks and music. To ensure the greatest degree of safety for them all, perspex cabinets were built to protect, in particular, the wind instrumentalists, who naturally didn’t wear masks, from their colleagues and vice versa.
A cabinet was also made for the conductor, again ideal for protection, but not so ideal for the music. The conductor has to deal with the sound bouncing off the cages in a sort of yo-yo affect which also softened the sound. Of course with so much space between them and the brass right at the back, sound takes longer to travel so the instruments at the back have to play earlier … Then when rehearsal venues and concert venues were not the same, they had to start all over again, and the conductor needed a microphone PA system to address the players so far off in rehearsals!
Plenty of scares
Although only a handful of musicians contracted COVID there were plenty of scares when musicians went into isolation and the assistant manager in charge of hiring extras tore her hair out on the eve of first rehearsals trying to replace them! Booking and unbooking musicians is her nightmare but cannot be avoided, causing much unhappiness and income (never secure) dwindles.
Filming was often straight forward with the occasional second run at a section to ‘fix’ it; then came the editing and then ensuring the final version were approved by CEO and conductor, especially stressful at the last moment if there were changes to be made … and there usually were. With one symphony concert after another, the videographer, known for painstaking attention to detail, had many all-nighters … and that was without the latest problem when the streaming platform experienced a technical glitch. With an hour to spare the all clear was given to Plan C and the apologies ready to go to the concertgoers were fortunately abandoned.
Flexibility is a word that has gained new currency. This time not because the orchestra is the most flexible in the country – in the last year it has streamed a youth gala and other youth concerts; a community gala (another is planned for late 2021); a YouTube video on getting to know the instruments made freely available to schools; involvement in two festivals; the streaming of chamber concerts and a chamber concert on the Cape Town Concert Series stage; plus accompaniment to opera and recording for Cinemagic.
It also must be flexible to adapt to changes, often last minute, wrought by Covid. Most recently the plan to sell tickets to attend three of the four concerts that will be streamed in the Winter Cyber Symphony Season from 8 July, 2021, had to be cancelled after the first concert. With only 100 people permitted in one place including artists, video and stage crew, this meant that only about 20 seats could be sold – and the orchestra would have had to hire a medic and a safety officer which would have cost more than the income! Not even the single concert for which tickets could be sold for both the dress rehearsal and the evening’s filming was simple.
The costs of filming a concert aren’t even covered by box office income from streaming, so the CPO was delighted when one sponsor offered to cover the full costs of a concert to mark a milestone birthday. He is hopeful this may lead to people following suit ….
Incredible support
All this has been so worthwhile, in spite of the fact that many people, who say they can’t wait for us to come back to live concerts, are fearful of streaming. As one concertgoer wrote … “While I can’t wait to be in the hall again with the orchestra and a large audience, I must admit that with family and work commitments, having a few days to choose from for a stream does have its advantages. Perhaps in future both.” Perhaps.
A reason for it being all worthwhile, apart from having the musicians do what they do best, and immense gratitude for the incredible support from the community with donations ranging from few rands to two million, is that the CPO’s name has gone far beyond SA. This is not only for the quality of its players but for the number of cyber symphonies it has presented – two in December, four in March, three in May and four coming up in July; and the improvement of local technical expertise of the filming. The CPO is South Africa’s cyber concert leader, with a growing concertgoing base.
Comments come from all over the world. “Could you hear our standing applause here in Australia?”, to “I wept in the Schubert” from Canada, and so many who say they loved the fact that they didn’t have to drive to a concert and then drive home again!
The CPO has set the standard and more concerts are planned for August and November. Plus there’s a conductor’s competition which will be launched as soon as dates can be finalised, and a composer’s competition later in the year. The CPO has proved that with pared budgets and donations and sponsorship from the city of Cape Town, the Rupert Music Foundation and many more, it has staying power.
Who: Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra
What: Winter Cyber Symphony Season
When: Streamed on Quicket from 8 July – 3 August 2021
Tickets: https://qkt.io/Avj9i
Info: www.cpo.org.za
WS
