ORDER AND ANARCHY
The concert is about to begin ... please switch ON your phones !
This year ’ s main piano event , entitled Order and Anarchy , took place on Zoom in March . A quick rethink of conventional strategies was applied in order to transform a musical experience to a virtual platform .
During lockdown people started realising what it was they missed about live concerts . While previously fellow audience members may have been little more than a nuisance , now we know what it is we missed – their ‘ oohs ’ and ‘ aahs ’. It is this communal experience of a live event that social media can offer , as those ‘ oohs ’ and ‘ aahs ’ were transformed into emojis and reactions on Zoom ’ s chat during the event .
While students performed music that exemplified one of the abstract concepts of order or anarchy , everything from clapping hands to thinking emojis sprang up on the screen .
What does ‘ Order ’ mean ? Rules , methodologies and propriety are ideas that might come to mind . The strictures of Bach ’ s fugues , presented skilfully by Orphée Patricot and Jerry Xiao , along with a set of Beethoven variations , played by Ray Hayashi , demonstrated this first abstraction .
And how about ‘ Anarchy ’? It can mean disorder , but it can also imply freedom and the absence of a controlling system . ‘ Liberty in its truest sense ’ was one description that was posted . This second idea was palpably experienced through the liberalism of Charles Ives ’ s mash-up of ‘ London Bridge is Falling Down ’, played with aplomb by Malek Marar , and Friedrich Gulda ’ s jazz-fusion antics , as interpreted by Columbus Sandor .
This virtual concert experience , according to the participants ’ posts , was ‘ engaging and enjoyable ’, and ‘ almost like the real thing ’. The future may well involve technology continuing to be used to augment the traditional concert hall experience .
Tau Wey
SEVENOAKS SCHOOL 2020-2021 67