Clarice performances highlight the future of livestream shows

First published Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021 in Stories Beneath the Shell.

When the University of Maryland shut down its campus on March 12, 2020, because of COVID-19, everything changed for opera professor Craig Kier. From one day to the next, he had to teach his students online. And have them perform online.

Kier could teach his students almost as if they were in-person with the help of Jamulus and Jamkzam — video conferencing tools similar to Zoom but meant for music — as well as good microphones, headphones and audio interfaces. 

Those tools made one-on-one lessons feasible, but performing as a group online was still near impossible. 

“So much of what performing in an ensemble is, be it as an orchestra musician or a singer singing an opera, is being aware of what else is happening around you and blending and fitting in to whatever the ensemble is,” Kier said. “Maybe you have the melody and so we want you to come out more, maybe you have something that is a harmony, so you should be singing a little bit less. All of that was much more difficult online.”

This semester, artists — including Kier’s students — can perform in-person at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. While many are excited to interact with the audience for the first time in roughly one-and-a-half years, online performances aren’t going away. This academic year, roughly half of performances at the Clarice are being performed in-person and are accessible via livestream. The other half are solely online or in-person shows. 

A preview of the future

Livestreams are more than convenient for some people, said Erica Bondarev Rapach, the acting executive director of the Clarice. In-person performances aren’t accessible to some community members for any number of reasons — cost, lack of transportation, aversion to crowds or simply living out-of-state, she said. 

That’s where livestreams come in. They offer a completely different way of experiencing the arts, Rapach said.

“There’s a new kind of experience that comes from when you’re sitting with your family, and you might be in your pajamas and you might be eating and having a glass of wine while you watch,” she said. “And maybe you’re having conversation because you’re not in a venue and people aren’t shushing you, but you’re able to engage with the work over livestream in a different way.”

Rapach said that the Clarice was beginning to explore livestreams before the pandemic as a way to open up access, but the pandemic accelerated those discussions. 

Gregory Miller, the director of the school of music, said livestreams are still important now that performances can be held in-person.

“I think the one thing technology does on all levels is it creates access,” he said.

Flutist Ceylon Mitchell, a doctoral student studying woodwind performance, is one of the students adapting to livestreaming. During the pandemic, he performed online. This semester, audiences could watch his recital in-person or via Vimeo. Viewers could engage in the Vimeo chat, but he couldn’t see the comments, he said.

“I simply just did my in-person thing per usual,” Mitchell said.

Going forward, performances at arts venues like the Clarice will incorporate the online audience much more than his recital did, he said. Viewing a performance in-person might become a premium option — online audience members might be able to ask questions, but not get autographs like in-person viewers.

“I think hopefully that will drive people who can make it in-person to spend that extra money to be there in the seats, eating the food and having that communal aspect of going to a concert which we all love,” he said.