Screen capture of Portland Baroque Orchestra's 3/13/20 concert (YouTube)
BY BRIAN LIBBY
Like most anyone who can, I've spent the last several days in self-quarantine mode. It's relatively easy when you already work at home and happened to have been stocking up on groceries for the past week or two.
Like pretty much anyone, however, I've yearned a little bit for human connection, or even just a chance to be transported out of my apartment. Exercise in the outdoors helps, and I'm very lucky to live near the Springwater Corridor, where I can bike through nature and along the river. But it's still not human connection. With no live sports on TV, no performing arts to attend in person, it has felt a bit like a desert of sorts in the middle of the city.
But last weekend I was surprised by just how much solace — how much of a resonant feeling of experiencing and being moved by art and architecture vicariously — came from watching two local concerts via live video streams: one by Portland Baroque Orchestra at First Baptist Church downtown, and and the other by Cappella Romana at St. Mary's Cathedral in Northwest.
Of course I've watched concerts online before, but this time it felt different. I felt more than I ever usually do watching a live event by video stream or on television that I was somehow closer to being there in those two houses of worship, a ticket-buyer in the audience.
Why did it happen? Why did these concerts feel so much like I was there?
Of course it starts with the concerts being a kind of antidote to feeling stir-crazy. The ability to imagine being in one of those churches, hearing the music in person and seeing the players in person, was stronger precisely because I couldn't be there. I wanted to be there all the more because it was off-limits. I was more likely to feel connected to the musicians because I was feeling isolated.
Or maybe it was just my fascination with the theorbo, a lute or guitar-like instrument with a ridiculously long double-neck. It felt like the classical equivalent of one of those '70s/early '80s bands like Deep Purple or the fictitious Spinal Tap. Only in this case it was cool.
Screen capture of Portland Baroque Orchestra's 3/13/20 concert (YouTube)
I think it also helped that I've previously attended concerts at both St. Mary's Cathedral and First Baptist Church. I even specifically recall going to see Portland Baroque Orchestra at that venue before: a previous season's performance of Bach's Brandenberg Concertos. Though I hadn't seen a concert by Capella Romana before, I'd certainly seen concerts at that Catholic church on Davis Street. That meant even though I wasn't at these concerts on this night, my mind could draw from past memories of being at those concerts and, to some degree, fill in the blanks subconsciously: the feel of the place when you're sitting in the pews watching music performed.
The fact that I knew these concerts were local may have also helped: the fact that I could imagine these musicians playing and singers singing just across the river. They were only a short bike ride away. I could almost convince myself that if I stood outside, I'd somehow be able to hear them naturally.
I mention all this not just to tell the story of some musical solace. I'm interested in the idea that the imagination can be more powerful than we think. That's something valuable to remember in a time of virus quarantine.
It's not to say anyone reading this would have necessarily had the same response I did to the music, but I did happen to note while watching the Capella Romana performance that about 800 people were watching at any given moment, which is likely considerably larger than the amount of people who would have been there in person. Of course, people watching via video stream are not, in most cases, buying tickets. These artists can't perform their work for free. That's why I believe I owe both Portland Baroque Orchestra and Capella Romana donations. Yet my point is really about something else: that the more we feel isolated in our quarantined surroundings, the more it may be possible to visualize and imagine ourselves being connected.
Cappella Romana's Mark Powell opening the concert (Cappella Romana)
Is a video feed the same as being there? Of course not. No one is saying that it is. But watching these two concerts, I felt the architecture as well as the music. As happened when I went for a long bike ride along the Willamette River, my spirits and sense of well-being were lifted. Only, I really did ride my bike by the river. I only watched those concerts on a little screen. And that's what I'm getting at: that however difficult it is to set aside our worries and our responsibilities, the long road through these weeks of quarantine requires us to make a series of mental leaps: the knowledge that someday relatively soon our public realm will be restored, our economy will get back on track, and that we will get through this.
Today we're being asked to live more of our lives not just remotely but vicariously: to see a digital connection as more of a primary connection than it did when frequent in-person connections were still possible. That is, like most things, a challenge and an opportunity.
There is so much to be anxious and fearful about right now. And isolation can intensify those fears. But as these concerts prove, at least to me, it is still possible to maintain a connection, or the feeling of a connection, to architecture and people we can't physically reach.
In a way, perhaps it is wishful thinking to say all this. But I did have a streaming experience that transported me more than most, and honestly the sensation made me think of chili peppers.
I used to dislike any spicy food, but eventually, as an adult, something clicked. I began to crave spicy food, even though it makes my forehead sweat to an embarrassing degree. The reason I mention this is because I've noticed that my forehead will also start to sweat when I simply think about spicy food — or more specifically, when I know I'm about to eat some. I can't just conjure sweat automatically, but if the food starts to seem real and attainable in my mind, and I know that habanero salsa is coming, the effect of the capsaicin can come, in theory, without eating at all.
If that's the case, so too can the feeling of being in a place without really being there. It's not easy to conjure, but it is possible. Maybe Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky are not your cup of tea. But it's not about classical music. It's about transporting yourself without leaving home. It's about getting that sweat going.
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