Towards the end of April, I had the opportunity to put together a virtual concert for the Culture in the Time of Corona Series, presented by the Johnstone Fund for New Music and Streetlight Guild, both local organizations here in Columbus, Ohio. Jack and Zoe Johnstone, the founders of the Johnstone Fund, have been my two biggest supporters of creative projects over the last three years. They have helped present and premiere two experimental recital programs, funded a brand new (forthcoming) concerto by Adam Roberts, provided COVID-19 relief funds, and as I mentioned above, produced a virtual concert series to keep local artists afloat.
That concert can be found on my Facebook Artist Page by clicking HERE.
A screenshot from the Culture in the Time of Corona Virtual Concert
The Culture in the Time of Corona Series was previewed in late March by Classical 101’s Jennifer Hambrick, which I failed to post on this site until just now—that article is linked HERE.
The learning curve of self-producing these kinds of performances is a steep one, and it’s honestly quite funny to look back on the above concert and pick out the things that I could’ve done better. But, no matter how that first concert looks now, what’s more important is how much I’ve learned about producing virtual concerts since then—it’s night and day!
To that point, Jennifer just recently revisited the Johnstone Fund’s virtual efforts in another article, this time about how the need for high quality virtual performances drove technical fluency and innovation from the performers. And even better, this time the focus was another new series from Jack and Zoe, the New Music Ohio Series, which picked up where Culture in the Time of Corona left off.
That article can be found HERE (thanks to Michael Torres for the shoutout!)
This entire project from the Johnstone Fund has been nothing short of amazing, and I’m glad to have played a small part by kicking things off back in April. I owe Jack and Zoe a humongous THANK YOU, not only for the opportunities they’ve provided me personally, but for their continued support of artists and the arts here in Columbus.