CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Orchestra has brought many to Severance Hall in University Circle, but sadly this year, people couldn’t gather in person to hear the performance. But the music must go on, see how these talented musicians are overcoming obstacles and innovating a way to bring the performance to you through an app.
The Cleveland Orchestra has returned to the stage, but not without it’s limitations.
“The Current COVID restrictions have really presented a lot of challenges,” said Ilya Gidalevich the Artistic Administrator of the Cleveland Orchestra. “One of the biggest things that we face is we really can’t use winds and brass on stage until it is much, much safer.”
Lisa Boyko, a Violaist with the Orchestra for 30 years, says another obstacle is social distancing on stage. “We all have to sit six feet apart, so that, as you can imagine, makes it difficult for us to hear and see each other. But the brain is an amazing thing. We are able to make adjustments for the distance and time lag that could happen acoustically.”
The Orchestra is reaching its audience through a new app, called Adella. Which features video recording of performances, something new for the Orchestra.
“The Adella app has been a silver lining to the pandemic. Video broadcasting is something we have been thinking about for a very long time. When you launch the Adella app what you are seeing is our “if Focus” series. But along with that there are also some shorter videos we shot earlier in the summer. There is some archival marital. There is access to the podcast,” explained Gidalevich.
“Playing for cameras and microphones instead of an audience is very different. We don’t have the sense that we are producing is being immediately received by people,” said Boyko. “But on the other hand, we know that our concert may actually reach a broader audience eventually.”
“Well, we were really looking forward to doing our Christmas concerts live and unfortunately those had to be cancelled,” reflected Boyko. “We know how much it means to our community to have that tradition to come down to Severance Hall and celebrate the holidays together.”
The next concert to be added to the Adella app will feature some holiday selections.
Editor's note: the video in the player below is from a story published on December 1, 2020.