April 1, 2020
Dear Friend,
Happy April Fool's Day!
In this week's update, I'll tell you about how the Chamber Music Society of Detroit is adapting to the COVID-19 crisis, and share some behind-the-scenes information about our next CameraMusic webcast concert, which is scheduled for this coming Saturday evening, April 4, at 8:00 PM.
First, though, let me assure you that the image in the logo above does
not
reflect our current staff approach to social distancing!
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I want to introduce you to someone our Michigan-based readers probably have never met before: my younger brother, Don Wogaman, USMC (retired). Don and his wife Erica Wogaman, USMC Reserve (also retired) live in northern Virginia, too far from Metro Detroit to attend any of the concerts of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. In spite of that, you see their names in the CMSD's program books as generous donors to our organization.
Four weeks ago, it was Don who caught me by phone during my morning commute and asked me, "have you been following the coronavirus situation?" Within 36 hours of that call we had our first webcast concert all set up with the Curtis Institute of Music, and we have been staying on top of this situation ever since. So this is a public shout-out to Don for helping the Chamber Music Society of Detroit respond so effectively to the COVID-19 crisis.
From all of us at the CMSD:
Thank you, Don!
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And how are we coping with this situation? Under the cirsumstances, quite well. By now you probably already know that we had to cancel all of our remaining concerts of the year, offering ticket holders the option of donating the value of their tickets to the CMSD, or receiving a refund check. We know that everyone's situation is different, but it has been gratifying to see that well over half of our patrons are electing the ticket donation option!
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Among other things, these resources are helping us to create our new CameraMusic webcast concerts, allowing us to pay otherwise isolated artists a fee to perform for us live over the Internet, from their homes or studios or wherever they are.
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More on our next concert below; but first, let's take a look behind the scenes...
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There are five of us on the Chamber Music Society staff: Willa Walker (VP and director of our concert operations), Danny DeRose (Director of Development and Marketing), Bryan Jones (Business Manager), Ana Jaquim (Production and Marketing Coordinator), and myself (president). Over three weeks ago, in a seamless transition that took each of us
under one hour
to implement, we all transitioned to working entirely from home. Our operating systems - email, telephone, ticketing, accounting, payroll, data storage, etc. - were already "in the cloud." So each of us just grabbed our phones and a small box of stuff, flipped on laptops in our home offices. We were up and running right away!
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Our phone system - RingCentral - is especially good, enabling us to start each day with a full-staff conference call, and to stay in touch regularly, both with each other, and our Executive Committee and Board of Directors. I want to offer another shout-out here to our board chair, Randolph Schein, who often joins our staff calls; he is both a brilliant leader and a great team member!
Thanks to this smooth transition, the experience of calling our office number (313-335-3300) will be no different for you now than it was before the crisis. So if you want to renew your seats for the 2020-2021 season, or haven't told us yet how you want to handle your remaining tickets for 2019-2020, or just want to say hello to someone, please give us a call!
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Webcasting technology, on the other hand, is a brave new world for us.
Our first two CameraMusic webcasts - Curtis on Tour on March 13, and Third Coast Percussion on March 28 - were relatively easy. That's because the artists themselves produced the live stream that allowed us to watch. But that takes equipment and resources that most artists don't have in their own homes. So for CameraMusic to be
really
effective at helping stranded artists during this crisis, we need to be able to produce some of these webcasts ourselves.
Saturday, April 4, will be our first self-produced webcast experience, when we live stream a concert from the living room of violinist Amy Schroeder and cellist Felix Umansky. Here's what our video control console looks like:
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Pretty scary, huh? Here's what it looks like in Felix and Amy's living room:
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What you see there is a MacBook laptop (with its integrated webcam) and an attached USB "Blue Yeti" microphone (April Fool, it's actually red). The idea is that they play their concert into that microphone and camera, streaming live over an encoding service to our PC-based control console in Michigan. Here we add a few production features, and then we stream it live to our new YouTube channel to create your live concert experience.
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As you probably know, many arts organizations and individual artists are streaming all kinds of things these days, nearly all of it accessible to audiences for free over services like YouTube Live and Facebook Live.
But there are two important big differences with the Chamber Music Society's CameraMusic concerts: (1) our concerts are streamed as
live
performances, from an actual artist to our actual audience, each participating at the same time in the experience; and (2) our artists are paid a concert fee just like they would if the concert were performed in person here in Metro Detroit.
Because there are no ticket sales, the only way we can make this work is with your support. That's why we've created the CameraMusic Fund, to provide the resources we need to connect as many artists and listeners as possible.
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Every dollar contributed to the CMSD’s CameraMusic Fund helps us to pay musicians for their live CameraMusic performances.
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Next up on the CameraMusic schedule: the duo of Amy Schoeder, violin and Felix Umansky, cello; performing live on Saturday night at 8 PM eastern time from their living room in Peekskill, NY.
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If these two look familiar, both were featured performers on our 75th Season Finale Concert last May in Orchestra Hall. Felix is cellist with the Harlem Quartet, and Amy is first violinist with the Attacca Quartet. Both of these string quartets have active performance schedules worldwide, and both have performed often in Southeast Michigan. Here's a link to the concert:
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Like our concert last week, this week's webcast will go "live" at 7:30 PM, a half-hour before the concert starts. That gives you (and us!) time to make sure all the connections are up and running before our 8:00 PM curtain time.
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Last week's update included big technical support section. If you still need help (and because this email is long enough already), we have put that same information onto a page on our website.
Here's a link to our new Webcast Technical Support page:
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We want you to enjoy these webcast concerts whenever you can. But most of all, we want to you stay safe and well; and we hope these webcasts continue in some small way the marvelous sense of community we all enjoy so much at the Chamber Music Society of Detroit.
You see, to all of us at the CMSD, you're
family
,
and nothing matters more to us than
you
.
Fondly,
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Steve Wogaman, President
Chamber Music Society of Detroit
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