B5
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 2021
Classical music adapts amid pandemic
By JERAD WALKER
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Members of the Record-
ing Academy nominated the
Oregon Symphony for mul-
tiple Grammy Awards late
last year. For outgoing music
director Carlos Kalmar, it was
a fi tting swansong, and it was
yet another feather in the cap
of the ensemble, which is Ore-
gon’s largest arts organization
and one of the oldest classi-
cal music organizations in the
country.
An event like that would
normally be cause for cele-
bration, but, at the time, the
orchestra was concerned with
a much more pressing issue:
survival.
“Each year about half of
our revenue comes through
ticket sales and the other half
through annual donations,”
Oregon Symphony CEO Scott
Showalter said.
With the orchestra on a pan-
demic-enforced performance
hiatus for the past 18 months,
Showalter estimates that his
organization has lost $15 mil-
lion in expected earned reve-
nue. The eff ects of that short-
fall have trickled down to staff
and the orchestra’s roughly 80
full-time musicians.
“You know that old adage
—’the show must go on’ —
which is how we’re all trained
and brought up to be? It was
just not possible,” says tim-
pani player and percussionist
Sergio Carreno.
While emergency govern-
ment funding helped consid-
erably during the pandemic,
individual musicians like Car-
reno faced tremendous eco-
nomic pressure. During the
past year and a half, they’ve
weathered layoff s, furloughs
and wage cuts. But Carreno
believes the measures were
necessary.
“That’s the only way to sur-
vive,” he said. “We had to take
a hit on all levels. If we wanted
the institution to continue.”
Violinist Shanshan Zeng is
a native of Chengdu, China,
but she’s called the United
States home for over a decade.
“My great-grandma is a
violin professor at our local
conservatory. So I started
learning with her until the year
I left for high school here in
the United States,” the Port-
land-based musician recalls.
International artists, who
make up a signifi cant part of
the classical music talent pool
in Oregon, have had their own
unique stress points. In the
wake of the COVID-19 out-
break, Zeng noticed a rise
in anti-Asian hate across the
country. The disturbing news
reports deeply concerned her
family in China and put Zeng
and her husband on edge.
“I see so many people’s
stories and I think — I think
some emotions just got inten-
sifi ed during this year,” she
said.
Foreign-born musicians
working in the United States
have also faced travel restric-
tions and concerns regard-
ing their immigration status.
Because of that, Zeng, who is
not a U.S. citizen, elected to
avoid travel abroad during the
past two years.
“My (immigration) law-
yers suggested I don’t risk not
being able to come back,” she
said. “I think the immigration
offi cers were also like ‘Maybe
you don’t get paid enough.
You don’t have enough work.
Then why are you staying
here?’”
When musicians like Zeng
can’t travel freely, it causes
other problems in the classical
music ecosystem. Chamber
music organizations rely heav-
ily on small groups of these
touring artists to fi ll out their
live programs.
“We’re dealing with a much
higher level of risk,” says
Peter Bilotta, executive direc-
tor of Chamber Music North-
west. “In planning to bring
national and international art-
ists to Portland, we’re stepping
out on a high wire right now
and hoping that we’ll actually
be able to bring them here in
September and that they’ll be
able to do concerts.”
With uncertainty about
upcoming venue capacity
restrictions, Bilotta said there
is also industrywide pres-
sure to innovate using tech-
nology. That means providing
high-quality digital content.
Chamber Music Northwest
streamed its 2021 summer
concert series online and those
who bought tickets can watch
the archived shows on-de-
mand anytime.
But that solution has a
drawback.
“You have to invest in
recording, producing, com-
pensating the artist for the
recording and the future
streaming of the work,” Bilotta
said. “So now you have a per-
formance that’s both live and
online but has cost twice as
much to produce.”
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