Pittsburgh Concert Chorale partially cancels season, plans virtual performance for Pirates game

The Pittsburgh Concert Chorale performed selections from Orff’s “Carmina Burana” on March 1. When members gathered March 10 for their first Pops rehearsal, no one knew it would be the last time they’d all be together for the next six months.

“Sadly, the very thing that gives our singers and our audience members solace is also something that has the greatest potential for spreading the virus,” Director Susan Medley said. With covid-19 spreading primarily through infected droplets and aerosol particles, singing in close quarters has shown to be a health risk, borne out in the pandemic’s early days when a Washington state choir practice resulted in 52 infections and two deaths.

With that in mind, Medley and PCC officials made the decision to cancel the first half of the group’s 2020-21 season, along with the group’s 35th anniversary gala, initially set for October.

“To be honest, I always considered a dangerous profession to be something like changing the light bulbs on top of the Empire State Building,” Medley said. “It never occurred to me that ‘choral conductor’ or ‘singer’ would ever be on the list, but here we are.”

The PCC is not sitting idle, though.

Using many of the same online tools that have helped others connect during the pandemic, the PCC has filmed a virtual performance of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” that will air during the seventh-inning stretch of the Aug. 7 Pittsburgh Pirates television broadcast on AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh.

In addition, Medley and PCC Accompanist Bryan Sable recently launched “Pairings with the PCC,” an online video series revisiting past PCC shows with a sort of “director’s commentary” featuring the two.

“She and I discuss them through a Zoom meeting,” Sable said. “It just gives people the sense of still belonging to a group in the middle of all this. We’re recording two more this week.”

Sable and Medley are working on other types of alternative programming for those who regularly enjoy PCC concerts.

“Of course, we can’t wait to get back to performing, and we can’t wait to gather once again to make music together,” Medley said.

For more, see PCCsing.org, and watch future episodes of “Pairings with the PCC” by visiting YouTube.com and searching “Pittsburgh Concert Chorale.”