The Last Concert I Went To and A Reflection On Remote Performance
The Last Concert I Went To and A Reflection On Remote Performance
The passing of Ryan Anthony--former trumpet of the Canadian Brass and Dallas Symphony--has shaken the brass playing world and, by association, the world of classical music. I have had the privilege to hear first hand about how amazing Mr. Anthony was on a number of occasions, including a one hour tribute to his life at the Brass Junkies Academy Summer Workshop, but nothing can showcase just how impactful, powerful, and positive a person he was better than the Boston Brass and Cancer Blows concert at the 2019 Midwest Clinic.
CancerBlows is a charity--founded by Ryan Anthony--that raises both awareness and money to encourage research for cancers with a focus on blood cancers & multiple myeloma through exciting & unique musical events. The Boston Brass concert on the final evening of the 2019 Midwest Clinic in Chicago featured a Cancer Blows holiday big band event as the second half of their program. They were joined on stage by a lineup of players many likely never dreamed of seeing perform together including Jens Lindeman, Allen Vizzutti, Rex Richardson, Wayne Bergeron, JD Shaw, and Wycliffe Gordon just to name a few. Their program included big band arrangements of famous holiday tunes and the Cancer Blows anthem “Song of Hope” by Pete Meechan. I cannot stress the gravity of this lineup and venue enough. A guest performance of any one of these artists with Boston Brass would be enough for most of the conference to attend. Thousands of musicians around the world likely cite any one of them as the best ever at their instrument, and none of them were highlighted in program--on purpose. Rumors flew around the conference that Wycliffe and Wayne were around to perform with Boston, but no one knew what the second half of the show had in store. The lineup of artists, the magnitude of the Midwest Clinic, the secrecy of the program, the pageantry of the performance, and the message of Ryan Anthony’s battle with cancer created an axiom of change in that hall.
This combination of marketing, audience appeal, and artistry show the music industry at its best--providing a recollection of child-like wonder at the serene and powerful expression of communal musical energy. This show--primed by the excitement of the Midwest Clinic and fortified by Ryan’s story and the number of people around the world who have been impacted by cancer--allowed the thousands attending to share in an organic, genuine human experience of pain, sadness, hope, and love.
These fleeting moments of collective humanity are vital to the empathetic survival of our society, but go against everything about the personalities and illusions of human connectivity that we are sold daily by social media companies. Over the last ten to fifteen years there has been an unmissable exponential increase in social isolation as a result of a parallel increase in social media consumption. While these avenues empower artists to publish their work more, this has led to music being published online at the expense of performing live. As a result the internet has curated an Aldous Huxlean environment where so much music is uploaded every second that trying to keep pace with new music makes it almost impossible to appreciate any of it, and the disparity in quality across all genres has rendered a search for highly impactful art excruciating. It has led to pages and pages of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube posts being watched for eighteen seconds before people just move on to the next thing or, if they feel gracious enough, to like the post before moving on. Would anyone leave a live show after just a couple of minutes--let alone a few seconds? Would anyone relinquish the palpable energy of attending a live performance with others because they got bored with it?
Societal obsession with social media and an increasing lack of daily human connectivity has led to live occasions of gargantuan spectacle--like Boston Brass and Cancer Blows--being the sole outlet for many people to experience a sense of community. The Boston Brass and Cancer Blows show was the last big concert I attended before the COVID-19 pandemic. While the preceding points are relevant regardless of 2020’s events, the artistic absence, distancing, and social isolation, as a result of trying to contain the virus, has left many people starved of human contact and connection. As a result this year has exacerbated the dehumanization of performance online. Remote performances are definitely better than nothing, but musicians and musical consumers are hurting because of the absence of our unifying link of live performances. Growing an online presence is a necessity for survival in the music business, but it is essential for people to remember that our presence online is an extension and replication of the live performing arts. The energy and community of living, breathing musical experiences is the axiom that funds cancer research and awareness, promotes social justice, heals a wounded soul, and lends purpose to the uninspired.