by Yoshimasa Kasahara

 日本語で

The COVID-19 situation in Japan drastically started to change in late February. I gave a recital on 20 Feb. (there, among other pieces, I performed the Japanese premiere of Laurence Lowe's Earthsongs, the recording of which is also on my YouTube channel). In that week, a small number of concert cancellations already occurred. However, they were mostly because of some performers from abroad who couldn't make the trip, so we weren't that upset. Things suddenly changed on the 26th, when the prime minister called on citizens to avoid events with large number of people. Almost all concerts were cancelled by second week of March. Until the middle of the month, some concerts took place as livestreams without audience (including a monumental production of “Götterdämmerung” in Biwako Hall), but soon faded away when crowded orchestral seating itself became an issue.

While performing arts events shut down quickly and obediently, the government was slow to restrict other economic activities. A large percentage of office workers continued (and, yes, still continue) to commute in notoriously packed (and punctual) trains, at least in mid-April. I might add that two orchestral auditions (not in Tokyo) for which I was applying, took place as scheduled, with much care placed on appropriate social distancing and hand sanitizer...

It was not until the Olympic/Paralympic games were officially postponed (24 Mar.) that both the PM and Governor of Tokyo started to persuade people to stay home (there's more to talk about on this topic, but it gets too political for this forum).

The Laudatio video was shot on April 7th, the day a state of emergency was declared by the PM for large cities, with an advance notice the day before. A scheduled rehearsal was cancelled, so I took advantage of the free time to make a video recording of this piece (in mid March I had relearned the piece for a lesson to a student who was preparing it for the IHS52 solo competition). Shibuya was definitely not uninhabited, but looked somewhat different. Less than usual, but still many people continue to come to work. Is this really an emergency? Who knows? Anyway, this solemn and heartfelt music seemed to fit the unreal mood of the day.

Stay safe, and keep on annoying your neighbors with the sound of your horn!

by Dr. Monica Martinez

At the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), the transition to online instruction has been successful but challenging. The support and effort provided to faculty, staff, and students by UTRGV was swift and reliable. The initial shock from having to transition so quickly to distance learning was stressful for all of us, especially those of us who are accustomed to the one-on-one studio teaching and ensemble settings that we are used to attending in person. As any educator and musician does in the moment, we roll with the punches and stay flexible, patient, and understanding. Not all performances go as planned, and this performance is unlike any we will face again.

Keeping students motivated can be challenging, especially when one’s own motivation comes into question. Finding ways to remain active, engaged, collaborative, and mindful of our education, even at this moment, is still part of the greater journey in our careers. It is not easy, but it is part of our journey nevertheless towards something much larger.

We are fortunate that UTRGV has had distance and online learning tools available as part of other course curricula and that it offered multiple tools to engage students and continue the learning. I took advantage of the online trainings for Blackboard, Zoom, Panopto, Respondus, and took a deep dive into learning about other platforms that could help to enhance my studio such as Flipgrid, SmartMusic, and Adobe Creative Cloud. So many products, so little time to digest it all. It was quite overwhelming, but I took it as a challenge knowing that down the line, we will all benefit from this as technology becomes even more present within the performing arts academic curriculum.I am grateful to have so many tools made available to me and for my students. Many of these platforms realized that there was an immediate need for access, and several provided them to educators and students at no cost. I use Zoom, Flipgrid, and SmartMusic at the core of my online instruction. Zoom is used for weekly lessons and studio class. Recognizing that my students’ at-home technological resources are different, I took what was available and adapted to it. They use Flipgrid and YouTube to submit recorded assignments. Zoom allows me to share my screen, and we are both able to play back video recordings while following along with a PDF of the music on the screen simultaneously. I also use SmartMusic for assessing my students’ fundamental proficiencies such as sight-reading.

by Anneke Scott

The beginning of the Coronavirus coincided with the tail end of a long Beethoven Symphonies tour with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Whilst the orchestra is officially based in London, the musicians are a very international bunch. We find ourselves getting together for very intense projects and then going our separate ways. When you’re on tour, it’s easy to become slightly distanced from what is happening in the news. We were all hearing various things from our home countries and also picking up snippets of news from the countries in which we toured, but I think we were all aware that something was coming. We had about two months off between the end of this part of the tour (Chicago) and the beginning of the next part (London). Very sadly everything has now been cancelled, leaving a feeling of a gaping lacuna for us all.

The musicians from the ensemble continue to be in touch with one another - our principal trombone Adam Woolf immediately sprang into action with a rather nice idea, a project he called “Bach Together”. All the IHS readers are more than welcome to contribute to it! The idea is that we can all remotely add our voice a virtual choir and orchestra performing one of Bach’s chorale settings “Ich will hier bei dir stehen” from the St Matthew Passion. You can find the project here: http://adamwoolf.com/bach/

Adam knew I’d recently been given a beautiful two-valved piston horn and wrote asking whether I wanted to use my “new toy” for the project. The problem is that this instrument is nowhere near A440. However, I had just the thing for Bach chorales - my Corno da Tirarsi. This is an incredible instrument with quite an extraordinary story. 

It is with great sadness and with a very heavy heart that we announce the cancellation of IHS52 at the University of Oregon, Eugene. As the months of this pandemic have progressed, it has became clear that the health and safety of our members, vendors and the concert-going public should be first and foremost in our minds.

With the University moving to online instruction for the duration of its Summer Session, and International travel bans still enforced, it is clear that it would be impossible for the Society to move forward with having our Symposium in August.

The Advisory Council would like to express our great thanks and appreciation to Lydia Van Dreel for her excellent organization and her tireless work on this Symposium. Later this summer, we will be announcing this year’s honorees, the new members of our Advisory Council, and will also be unveiling IHS53, so watch www.hornsociety.org for these very important announcements.

The International Horn Society would not exist without our members, and it is for the protection of all that we have made this difficult decision. We look forward to the first opportunity we have to come together, learn from one another, play music together, and enjoy the nobility and beauty of our most incredible instrument.

• All participant and exhibitor fees will be fully refunded
• Refunds are automatic — there is no need for you to do anything at the moment
• When your refund has been processed, you will be notified by email
• It may take until the end of May for all refunds to be fully processed
  Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated

Please understand that these are unprecedented times for everyone, and the University of Oregon is handling numerous cancellations and restructuring of courses for online teaching. Your patience is appreciated.