‘Never faced anything like this.’ Will COVID-19 silence singers until there’s a vaccine? – The Cincinnati Enquirer

Americas vocal ensembles,one of the soundtracks ofthis country, may notbe making musicuntil theres a COVID-19 vaccine. The same might also be true ofchurch choirs or church congregations. Operas and musicals, where performers sometimes sing directly into another's face,mighthave to be restaged to placesingers much farther apart.

The silencing of choral groupscould hit hard since an estimated 54 million people or 1 in 8 Americans sing in some type of choir, according to a 2019 study made for the group Chorus America.

The National Association of Teachers of Singing lastweek brought togetheran online panel discussion of scientistsand medical professionals to assess how the coronavirus will affect choirs.The discussion shared on YouTubesentshock waves through the singing world.

There is no safe way for singers to rehearse together until there is a COVID-19 vaccine and a 95% effective treatment in place, said Dr. Lucinda Halstead, president of the Performing Arts Medical Association, and the medical director of the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of South Carolina.

Earl Rivers, director of the Knox Church Choir reacts to his piano player as he directs during practice at the Knox Presbyterian Church in Hyde Park in 2011. The choir has a reputation for being one of the finest in Cincinnati.(Photo: Enquirer file)

Its culturally devastating, Ive never faced anything like this. Choir directors all over the country are asking what we can do safely (and) how were going to conquer this, said Earl Rivers, director of music at Knox Presbyterian Church in Hyde Park.

I share their concerns, but we also know the evidence is not clear yet as to what we can and can not do, said Rivers, who isthe outgoing director of choral studies and professor of music at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, as well as the former music director of the Vocal Arts Ensemble, Cincinnati's professional chamber choir.

Halstead noted that somesevere COVID-19 infections had started in churches. Examples include two congregations in Hopkins County, Kentucky that had a combined total of50 COVID-19 cases and four deaths after revivals in March.

The debate about the safety ofsinging in the age of COVID-19 comes days ahead of when the May Festival Chorus should have been taking the stage at Music Hall to begin its annual two-week run, starting this year with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on May 22. The chorus runs the oldest continuous choral festival in the Western Hemisphere.

Soloists Michelle DeYoung and Anthony Dean Griffey in the foreground, while projections played across a large screen behind the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony, led by Michael Francis in the May Festival's "Dream of Gerontius."(Photo: Provided/Lee Snow)

"As far as when we return to singing in groups and when that is safe nobody can say definitively when that is going to be,it is a long way off," said Matthew Swanson, the festival's associated director of choruses. "But its going to be different depending on what part of the country youre in and what your singing circumstances are."

A vaccine is 18 to 24 months away, Halsteadestimated during the panel discussion, which also included representatives of the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America andthe Barbershop Harmony Society. Other estimatesincluding one by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert say a vaccine will be available sooner.

As of 5 p.m. Sunday, there hadbeen 1.3million COVID-19 in the United States resulting in more than 79,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

The concern of scientists is what's put into the air when somebody sings and how that's magnified when a group of people sings.

Since early in the coronavirus epidemic, scientists have been focusing on aerosol transmission of the virus where the coronavirus in droplets goes directly into the respiratory system or ends up there after somebody touchesa surface contaminated with droplets and then touchestheir "T-zone" in and aroundtheir mouths, noses or eyes.

Aerosolized particles of the virus are about five microns in size (for reference, a human hair is 100 microns) and can survive in aerosol form for about three hours, a recent New England Journal of Medicine article concluded.

"Ordinary breathing and speech both emit large quantities of aerosol particles," noted an April 4 article published in the journal Aerosol Science and Technology.

San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus conductor Tim Seelig in a scene from "Gay Chorus Deep South."(Photo: Courtesy of Adam Hobbs and Thorsten Thielow)

But the volume of airborne droplet nuclei generated by singing issix times more than those emitted during normal talking, according toTim Seelig, director of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, who talked to doctors in his chorus and researchedscientific papers about singing and aerosolized particles.

Singing is equal to coughing in the number of particles emitted, he wrote in a set of guidelines for choruses. Unlike coughing, "singing ... is sustained," Seelig addedin his guideposted on the Chorus America website.

He concluded: "Should we be so fortunate as to perform in the fall/winter, not only will audiences most likely be required to adhere to physical distancing, but the performers will as well."

In addition to cases at churches, an outbreak among dozens of choir members at a Washington state church drew attention in March. The Los Angeles Times reported that at least two singers died.

In Germany, 59 of 78 singers in Berlin's Protestant cathedral caught the virus, according to the Guardian newspaper. When the countryreopened its churches on May 3, there was no singing, reported the public broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Officials at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati Friday announced that in-person services would resume May 25 six days before Pentecost Sunday, commemorating the date that the Christian church began its mission to the world with the descent of the Holy Spirit converting Christ's disciples into apostles.

In addition to limiting the number of parishioners and observing social distancing, guidelinesfor the 211 parishes in the 19-county archdiocese includethis: "Consideration should be given to reducing the role of choirs and ensembles in light of social distancing and public health regulations."

Sunday, Indiana reopened churches in 91 of its 92 counties for in-person services with no health restrictions on singing. Churches in Marion County (Indianapolis) remained closed.

Gov. Eric Holcomb said officials will be able to learn from places of worship, depending on what happens over the next 14 to 21 days as in-person services resume."If we can manage this, it gives us a lot of confidence in some other arenas as well," he said.

The May Festival Chorus(Photo: Provided)

Donald Milton, an infectious bio-aerosol specialist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, said during last week's conference call there are multiple challenges keeping singers from safely coming together.

There are no barriers currently safe for singing. An N95 mask may provide some measure of safety if fit-tested, but it would be difficult to breathe (and) decrease the levels of oxygen with rebreathing, Milton said, adding, the masks could cause headaches and injure people with asthma.

A particular concern about rehearsal spaces is that they are smaller than performance halls, making it hard to space the singers at least six apart. In addition, indoor spaces have air that's potentially more likely to be saturated with aerosolized particles emitted from singing.

The spacing issues also will apply to performances, Halstead said.

"Think about the Westminster Choir spacingsix feet apart," she said talking about an acclaimed 50-voiceensemble from New Jersey's Rider Universitythat is the chorus-in-residenceat the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina. "You would need a football field."

Seelig has an array of ideas he's considering for his nearly 300-voice chorus, which has made more than 30 recordings and toured across America and numerous foreign countries. They include:

Rivers said his church will have three Zoom meetings thisweek to discuss solo, choir and congregational singing.

Were waiting to find out the best practices and what might we safely do to protect the singers or one attending a choir concert, he said. We arent going to do anything until safe.

The May Festival's Swanson said smaller groups of singers may be able to get together sooner than a 120-member chorus.

Theres still a lot to be found out in terms of science. Hopefully, we wont have to wait 18 months, Swanson said.

Singing in Cincinnati itself is not going to stop, he added.

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'Never faced anything like this.' Will COVID-19 silence singers until there's a vaccine? - The Cincinnati Enquirer