OUR VOICES & YOU by Patrick Dupre Quigley
On May 11, 2021, in Coral Gables, Seraphic Fire made music in person for the first time in 14 months. As an organization dedicated to the live performance of classical vocal music, COVID-19 took a shot at the heart of our raison d’être. Everything about our musical lives had changed. Concerts became music videos. Classroom visits turned into virtual YouTube workshops. Supporters and fans watched on their computers, tablets, and smartphones. Artists learned how to make music in tandem with headphones, an Amazon microphone, and a click-track. Staff transformed their homes into ensemble offices. But May 11, 2021 would be different. The previous seven days spent in solo quarantine, we gathered on a breezy day in a Coral Gables rehearsal room. As we intoned Mozart and Monteverdi, deeply-missed physical feelings returned. Chords locked, fingers tingled, hair stood on end. We felt mixed emotions of joy, happiness, anxiety. The feeling of making music together in a room was overwhelming; yet, something was missing. Music is first and foremost physics. Sound gets to our eardrums through our bodies. We vibrate sympathetically to music. There are no spectators at concerts: Humans conduct sound. What was missing on May 11 was you. Your presence changes the music, changes the room, the energy, the sound. Without you in the room, we are sympathetically vibrating objects. With you in the room, we are Seraphic Fire.
Thank you for being an audience member, a patron, a Board member, a fan, a supporter, and a friend. You give Seraphic Fire its voice. We are grateful to you as our comrades in this endeavor, and look forward to finally making music together with you again.
SOME OF SERAPHIC FIRE’S INNOVATIONS DURING SEASON S INCLUDE:
This November Seraphic Fire aims to add one more bullet to this list: Returning to in-person concerts in front of a live audience.
– Producing six full-length digital concert programs reaching 4,000 audience members – Producing two digital education concerts reaching 3,000 Miami-Dade County students and teachers; – Developing three digital classroom music workshops for distance learning, reaching 1,500 Title 1 elementary school children; – Creating 12 audio podcasts that have been listened to over 3,000 times; – Connecting with our audience community while they were shut in their houses; – Expanding our digital subscribership to hundreds of households around the country and world; – Increasing Seraphic Fire’s donor base by more than 100 new donors; – Keeping all our financial commitments to our musicians and staff; – Releasing the first complete recording of Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo virtutum; – Running two balanced budgets during both fiscal years touched by the pandemic; and – Leading the charge back to in person music-making with our May performing bubble.
SEASON 2021-2022
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