by Daniel Hathaway

Originally, Oberlin Arts and Sciences Orchestra conductor Tiffany Chang simply planned to join in the celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday year with an October performance of his Choral Fantasy, featuring piano professor Peter Takács on the solo part the composer himself played at its debut in a marathon concert on December 22, 1808. But after the novel coronavirus began its inexorable progress across the country in March, shuttering live concerts for the foreseeable future, a change in plans was in order.

Why not create a virtual performance instead, using the school’s sophisticated recording technology? How complicated could that be? In a Zoom conversation from Chang’s home in Taiwan, where she has been hunkering down since the campus went on break at Thanksgiving, she confessed, “I didn’t know what I didn’t know, which is how you get into these huge projects.” [Read more…]