Through personal interviews, we will hear and experience firsthand how the COVID-19 pandemic has silenced live music from both the performer and attendee perspectives in the past year. We believe it will help future researchers understand the impacts the sudden and ongoing shutdown of live music had on both the performer and the audience.
We will address the following three aspects most greatly affected: Mental and emotional health, financial and professional challenges. We feel this Trifecta will allow us to examine the immediate (upon pandemic declaration by the World Health Organization) and ongoing impacts that the pandemic has had on the performing arts through the economic, social, creative and political lenses. Specifically, the cultural and emotional value for performers and audience members. Even though many artists have found new ways to deliver their music or theatre performances via online platforms to audiences, the experience is not the same for either party. We consider that if artists and performers are not working in their field, what are they doing to channel their creative energy? Additionally, in live music, many audience goers use the attending of concerts to connect and bond with each other. How (if at all) are they maintaining those connections now that live music has been silenced.