In the Fall of 2020, with the new pandemic regulations swirling around us like a noxious tornado, we found ourselves playing less real chamber music than normal. Distancing and quarantining restrictions kept us away from other musicians in the Conservatory and instead, found us huddled together in a little clump. The studio was much smaller than normal, with one student taking a gap-year and another studying remotely. So the normal Ensemble class activities were nowhere in sight.

Still, we put on a concert. The room, as per Con regulations that semester, was empty with myself as the only exception. The concert was streamed, of course, but as so many in our field know intimately now, playing for an empty room isn’t quite the same! We assembled one large work to play together, spending rehearsals sitting as far apart as possible. Aidan Wiley Lippke was the evening’s hero, playing the solo guitar part of the entire Ponce Concerto. The orchestral accompaniment, as arranged for two guitars by the Kupinsky Duo and played beautifully by Craig Slagh and Suvan Agarwal, was almost as difficult as the solo part. The remainder of the program was given over to the presentation of some of the solo material the students were working on. The program sounded terrific: it would have been nice to have had an audience there. Congratulations to the three who played!

Here are some images from that evening; the full program is at the end of the post.