Life Offstage
It’s been an interesting time to be a musician.
As I watch the leaves outside change into their beautiful hues of yellow, orange, and red, I can’t help but think of everything that has changed in my own life this year. I’ve often found Fall to be a time of reflection, and normally I would find strange delight in the contrast between the promise and potential of a new concert season and the departure of the warm summer days.
Instead, I’ve been mostly in my apartment in Montreal, where we’re in our second lockdown to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. With concert halls closed for the time being, it’s hard to know when any semblance of a normal concert schedule might resume.
If I’m being honest, it’s neither the performing nor the world-traveling lifestyle that I’ve missed the most. Don’t get me wrong, the adrenaline rush of finishing a performance and having the audience erupt into applause is unlike anything else, and I’m never more invigorated than when I’m about to set off on a new adventure with my cello on my back and carry-on by my side. Even if it means getting up at 5am.
No. What I’ve missed the most is the sharing that is so intrinsic to music. Whether it’s playing together with friends and colleagues, meeting and talking with audiences, telling favourite musical stories, or having a good old post-concert celebration.
I’ve been lucky over the past months to have pretty much completed my “COVID bingo card for musicians”. I played both outdoor and virtual concerts, made videos, livestreamed, gave zoom interviews, recorded a podcast, filmed a day in my life, and even managed to fit in recording a new CD. A lot of that was really fun!! But somehow it only highlighted for me how unusual these times have been.
I was supposed to be finishing an exciting season of new projects and travels, a summer packed to the brim with music-making, and a fall full of new possibilities!
But this isn’t a eulogy for what could’ve been.
After all, I’m far from being alone in having had my well-crafted plans and dreams crushed by the Coronavirus, and even though musicians may have been particularly hard hit by lockdowns, I’m also fully aware that we are far from the only ones to have suffered.
So as we wait for things to return to normal, what is there to do?
Well, more than ever, I’ve found myself turning to writing to try and capture my thoughts. At first, it was just for myself, but then I wondered whether there might also be a benefit in putting some of my writing out into the world. Maybe through my own story, I can capture some of the fascination, wonder, and joy that led me to choose a life in music. Maybe there’s no better time than right now, when it feels like such dark days for music, to instead be sharing as widely as possible everything that makes it so amazing.
There is a famous saying that goes : “Music begins where words end.” Maybe in this world where for the time being, sharing through music isn’t what it once was, the written word will just have to do.
So here it goes. At least for a while anyways, or until I get bored.
I hope that you’ll join me.