Carnegie Hall writes off 2020
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Carnegie Hall today announced that it will cancel all events in its three performance venues until January 7, 2021 due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19.
“This was a very difficult decision for us to make, however the safety of Carnegie Hall’s artists, audiences, and staff is paramount,“ said Clive Gillinson, Executive and Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall. “After consulting with medical professionals and other experts on a continuing basis, we have concluded, in the face of current government restrictions and social distancing protocols, that there is no other option but to extend the Hall’s closure through the end of the calendar year, allowing health conditions to continue to improve. While this has been an enormously challenging time for all of us, we remain focused on preparing for when we will be together again and, in the meanwhile, actively engaging audiences digitally in service of our musical mission.”
All Carnegie Hall performances from October through December 2020 have now been cancelled.
Those who live in New York and London gaze in mute wonderment at the resumption of performing life in Vienna, Salzburg and Prague.
But then residents of Austria, the Czech Republic and also Germany have governments who actually seem to get a handle on such a crisis, in horrific contrast to the governments in the US and the UK. As a Brit resident in Germany, I bleed for my country and scream at it in equal measure.
The population of the whole of Austria, about 8.6 million is not even the population of the city of London at 10 million far more multi-cultural.and inter-cultural than Vienna – and 10m are just the ones we know of in London. Would be a different story if Austria had a population of 58 million as for England or 68 million in the UK. We must be patient and save lives. The death rate certainly in England is very high still per million population.
A quick glance at the daily new cases and daily deaths curves for the U.S. and most European nations will readily explain the difference in policies. The US has been stuck on a plateau of about 20,000 new cases and 800 deaths daily for the past 8 weeks, while rates in Europe have dropped steadily to far lower levels. The UK falls in between the US and continental Europe.
Dunfermline’s cultural calendar has taken a serious blow with this news.
Couldn’t they at least have had some of the smaller chamber performances occur, or have some performances happen this fall for live streaming?
And pay?
Isn’t it obvious on it’s face that the US’s and the UK’s response to CV is inept compared to continental Western Europe’s and Asia’s?
What could be more obvious?
Talk about the politicization of a pandemic…
We need to protect our NHS workers in the UK or it will get overwhelmed in a second wave as Italy was and what Sky showed us all. It was dreadful. Our prime minister, as a fellow human being, is certainly lucky to be alive.
Deaths to date in New York City have been 458 times as high as deaths in Salzburg, 191 times as high as in Vienna, 176 times as high as in Prague. If Salzburg and Vienna and Prague were bundled together into one city, its combined COVID19 death total would be 1.8% of New York City’s. I’ve got this crazy hunch that this might help explain the difference in concert policies.
Quite right Paul. As a New Yorker wild horses wouldn’t drag me into Carnegie Hall until there’s a working deployed vaccine (and I virtually live at the hall or the Met during the season). There are all kinds of people in NYC from all over the world and the CH audience is very diverse with all kinds of tourists as well as locals present. You’d have to be insane to try to stage a concert there at present. We are getting better at treating Covid 19 in hospital but I still don’t want to get it!
+1!
Well, the answer is rather simple: countries like Czechia or Austria have nowhere near as many cases and deaths as the US or the UK.
This is what happens when you are run by Democrats. Panic and fear mongering. Their own anti-Trump tactics have hit them schmock in the face.
Run by Democrats? So the colossal failure in our national response and complete lack of strategy to get out of this mess is the fault of each individual governor? Does that apply to Florida and their Republican governor? How convenient for Trump that his minions claim he has no responsibility in all this.
Trump said he alone could fix America. He said he would get the best people, most of whom he now calls “losers.” He said we would get tired of winning. If having the most Covid cases and deaths is winning, then yes, I am very tired of winning.
The national response has overall been quite good, as few states have been hitten harsh by Covid. The exceptions are of course – as with the riots and collapse of police we see new – Democrat run states like NY, where governor Cuomo ordered 4,300 recovering patients to be sent to nursing homes. But please: Blame Trump. I think I rest my case there.
“few states have been hitten harsh”
“collapse of police we see new”
English doesn’t seem to be your first language. Maybe a little bot activity here?
Do not tell me you believe that US is controlled by the few Democrats governors. LOL!
Yes, that is typical of the intellectual level of the vast majority of Trump supporters.
What a deranged and diseased comment. Especially given what he have just learned about Trump’s coddling of China from his most recent deposed National Security Advisor.
Poor Peter, I guess you haven’t noticed that the Republican Party rules the Presidency and the Senate. You might go to those representatives and ask them how they failed the populace.