Journey to the 2020 VIRTUAL Festival

Although the COVID-19 coronavirus was first detected in 2019, it was not until the early months of 2020 that its impact on the world became evident. By mid-March, most U.S. grade schools, high schools, colleges, and universities dismissed their students from their campuses to stay at home and attend classes on-line. In what seemed a blink of an eye, life here turned upside down. Mothers, fathers, and students were working and studying at home.

This disruption to “normal” life had an impact on everything, including the Falcone Festival. Students lost the resources ordinarily available to them—no pianists to rehearse and record with, limited or no recording facilities outside their homes and, for some, loss of school-owned instruments. Add to that the difficulties of those in apartments who had to juggle times to rehearse while accommodating schedules of those in apartments around them, people who are working from home or perhaps working nights and needing to sleep during daylight hours. Certainly, a challenge!

The Falcone Festival Board’s first announcement regarding the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic came on March 15, detailing changes to the preliminary application requirements for the 2020 Festival. The deadline was extended from March 31 to April 30, 2020, giving applicants an extra month to complete recordings and submit materials. In addition, the piano accompaniment requirement was waived; the required repertoire remained the same as originally posted for 2020 but allowed applicants to choose to submit with or without piano accompaniment.

On April 13, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp announced it was suspending all camp activities for 2020. This meant that the Festival could not be held there. The board considered options and decided they were unlikely to find another venue for August. Moving the Festival to a later date (December 2020 or January 2021) was problematic because of the uncertainties about contagion and peoples’ schedules.

That left the board to decide whether we could present a virtual festival up to our standards or whether we should simply cancel the 2020 Festival. We announced our compromise on April 24: we would hold a festival, even though we weren’t sure exactly what it might look like, and we would try to keep as many signature aspects of a “normal” festival as we could.

When we reached our (new) deadline for applications on April 30, we found ourselves with a robust pool of applicants in all four divisions. Our belief that players would remain interested in applying was justified! On May 15, the board announced that the 2020 Falcone Festival was going virtual. So...

Welcome to the 2020 Virtual Falcone Festival!