There’s a tough journey ahead for the world of live classical music, but a virtual Mass has given Wigmore Hall director John Gilhooly his roadmap, he tells Joanna Moorhead

There’s a tough journey ahead for the world of live classical music, but a virtual Mass has given Wigmore Hall director John Gilhooly his roadmap, he tells Joanna Moorhead

Performance art is in doldrums even its most imaginative practitioners couldn’t have imagined a few months ago, which is why the announcement that, from next week, live concerts will begin again from London’s Wigmore Hall has been hailed as little short of miraculous. So it’s apt, perhaps, that the miracle owes its existence to a Mass broadcast live from St James’s, Spanish Place, in London, which was attended virtually by the Wigmore Hall’s director, John Gilhooly.

“It was Easter Sunday, and the Mass included an organist and a singer – everyone socially distanced, of course,” Gilhooly tells me. “And as I watched it I thought: if they can do it, so can we.”
A few days later, he contacted Radio 3 to see if there was interest, if he could make concerts happen, in broadcasting them live. “I said, we’re going to try this – do you want to be our partner? And they were thrilled – I don’t think anyone had thought about how to bring live music back.”

Get Instant Access

Continue Reading

Register for free to read this article in full

REGISTER

Subscribe for unlimited access

SUBSCRIBE NOW

From just £37.50 quarterly

  Print copy of The Tablet delivered directly to your door.
  Complete access to all Tablet website content including all premium content.
  Access to the weekly digital copy of The Tablet.
  Full access to The Tablet’s archive – over 180 years of back issues.

Already a subscriber? Login