“In the old normal, 13,000 picnic-basket-toting patrons would pack [Tanglewood’s] green space to see James Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma or Mahler’s Ninth,” write Geoff Edgers and Peggy McGlone in Tuesday’s (4/28) Washington Post. “Earlier this month … the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s emergency task force [mapped] out a seating chart that incorporated social-distancing guidelines … and knocked capacity below 4,000…. At the Kennedy Center, with a June opening of ‘Hamilton’ in the 2,300-seat Opera House seeming unlikelier with each COVID-19 spike, there has been a renewed focus on offering other programming at the organization’s more intimate annex, the Reach… The launching of this new normal is a sensitive one…. That’s why the Boston Symphony’s president, Mark Volpe, politely declined to release the socially distanced map of Tanglewood … one of several [scenarios] being considered for 2020…. ‘We don’t want to create false hope,’ says Volpe…. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who also serves as artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, says, … ‘Even though all the evidence says flying is safe, I have a fear that will make me drive 40 hours to a gig.’ … He pictures himself back onstage in July, ‘As soon as it’s not endangering people to be onstage,’ he says.’ ”
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