Invictus
In class today, we were listening to music from underrepresented composers, and one piece that grabbed my attention was Invictus by Anthony Barfield. Watching it in class, I realized this isn't the first time I've heard the piece before. I had actually watched this during the pandemic during my time in undergrad through word of mouth. He says in the video that he wrote the piece to represent the state of New York during 2020. As someone who was living in New York during the pandemic, I can attest to a lot of what he was saying. The Black Lives Matter movement and the changes to the city from COVID-19 were very much present. I don't know if you saw photos of Manhattan and Times Square during the pandemic, but those photos were very much real. It was very polarizing to see a city that is always bustling and feeling overpacked at times, to be almost completely barren, like straight out of a dystopian video game.
During the pandemic, there were different ways musicians had to adapt. One way was through remote recording. This is where musicians would record their individual parts at home, and someone would take all the recordings and line up the audio so it sounds like the group was playing in the same space. Another way was to mask up with these special masks that had an opening to put your mouthpiece through, and these covers that you had to put over your bell.
I can attest that this method was not fun. The last one, which you can see in this video, is the social distancing. As long as every musician was at least 6 feet or more from each other, it was a safe space for them to play without masks and bell covers. The fact that the musicians are all 12 feet apart to create the circle is insane and takes a lot of coordination to all be together. Invictus sounds like a really nice piece. It's also really cool how there were musicians from various groups in New York, like the NY Philharmonic, the NYC Ballet, and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. Feel free to watch it if you have the time.
My whole blog was centered around the Covid period and projects that spawned as a result, so your talk about the PPE is fresh in my mind, as I had to think back on all those times to write about them. I agree with you; it was not fun!
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of what you had to say in this post. It’s so strange thinking that 2020 was five years ago now, and looking back to what all we had to do just to make music school keep going. I remember how annoying it was to use both the musicians masks, and even covers on the bells of our instruments when playing inside. It was tough, but in a way I appreciated both the commitment to heath and safety, as well as the commitment to try and make something happen in the music world.
ReplyDeleteCOVID was my end of senior year / first semester of college, so I remember well everyone trying everything to make sure that we could still make music in a safe way. At some points, it felt like throwing spaghetti at the wall. However, I do think that it raised an appreciation for what we do get to do normally now. If bell covers ever come back though, I'm quitting.
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