Why live-streaming will never beat live performance...

Chichester Chamber Concerts should have been starting the New Year with a visit from The Bach Players on Thursday, January 28.
Nicolette MoonenNicolette Moonen
Nicolette Moonen

Inevitably, it’s not happening – which is hardly the best possible start to The Bach Players’ 25th anniversary year.

But leader Nicolette Moonen (violin) is looking on the bright side. The concert has been provisionally rescheduled to take place as part of this year’s Festival of Chichester (though precisely what format the festival will take this year remains to be confirmed).

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“But I do feel confident that things might be able to happen by then. We had this concert in Chichester and two days later we had a concert in Warwick. But the great thing is, as with last year, is that concerts are not being cancelled; they are being postponed. We have already got a new date, and for us that it wonderful.

“Our audiences tend to be over 60 but because of the vaccination programme, I do feel confident that by July we can start to be performing again.

“Most of the people in our audience age category will have been vaccinated by the end of February and by July they should have got to people in their 50s.”

In the meantime, The Bach Players can cling to the memory of the last concert they actually managed to perform, a magical event on March 7 last year.

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“It was as if we and the audience felt that something was about to happen… and then things started happening really quickly. I remember the day we came together in my house to rehearse and we decided not to hug, which was very odd because we are all good friends, but already at that stage we were aware of the virus.

“And then the concert was magical. And the strange thing was that there was not a single cough. People had become very aware… but that concert became for us a very positive memory.

“And then one after another all our concerts were postponed…

“But thankfully I teach. I love teaching. I teach at the Royal Academy of Music. I love my students, but I had to take to teaching on Zoom.

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“You just have to make it possible. We all become very imaginative and inventive! And I think it is amazing the way we have managed. It is not the same as seeing our students for real, but the students have been extraordinary.

“Really my heart bleeds for all the young musicians that have just left college and can’t get started. The ones that I taught, I just admire them so much. They have been very resilient. Most of them have gone back to live with their parents. They are not in a position to get government support. They have to have three years of accounts.

“They have just got three years of debts. But the shame is that those of them just coming out of college are so ready to go.

“So far, I don’t know of any of the ones I have taught giving up. They are having to do other things, but they are wanting to get back to music.”

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As for The Bach Players, they haven’t done any live-streaming – a very definite decision by Nicolette.

“I find it so depressing, this streaming stuff. The most important thing when you get together to play is that you are playing for others. It is very different to just playing for ourselves. It is about the communication with the audience.

“For me the choice was easy. It wouldn’t be easy to find a venue and then you have got to do the recording and to make sure that the sound is good enough… and then you don’t have an audience. I decided it was much better to wait.”

And what a joy it will be when that wait is finally over “when we can get back together again and realise what we have missed, that special magic of live performance with an audience…”

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