“Musicians who have often seemed far, far away—viewed from the Carnegie Hall balconies and distant realms of the Metropolitan Opera—are starting to seem like my new best friends,” writes David Patrick Stearns on Sunday (4/19) at New York radio station WQXR. “Performers are now appearing on our home computer screens in remarkably unguarded close-ups, coming from inside their homes.… In her show Living Music: Pirate Radio Edition, Nadia Sirota turns out to be the most web-friendly presence out there, interviewing many of the artist friends that this violist/broadcaster has accumulated over the years…. And then at the end, they all celebrate by drinking on the job.… Ever-friendly Yannick Nézet-Séguin … invites the public into his Montreal home via Zoom…. He is what he seems to be—but not all sunshine and unicorns. On an April 14 Q&A session over Zoom presented by The Philadelphia Orchestra, he admitted to huge insecurities when rehearsing a piece he’s never previously performed.… Not every great musician is cut out to be this kind of mayoral public figure…. The late Jessye Norman once admitted that on some days she just stayed in because when outside, she had to be Jessye Norman.”
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