In the midst of the pandemic, the Tbilisi Youth Orchestra had some projects to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Beethoven. How did the pandemic affect your plans and how are they going to adapt to the regulations?
In general, I think one of the major issues among the ensembles in Georgia is the lack of stability and consistency. This of course then affects the motivation. That’s why in my practice with Tbilisi Youth Orchestra we make sure that our plans are made for the year in advance.
Accordingly we had the whole 2020 planned out. We had eight concerts scheduled for Spring and six planned for Fall, but the pandemic hit and we had to stop in March. Yet we continued meeting online. We were trying our best to keep the orchestra in good shape. We managed to remotely perform Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, which was one of the very first remote orchestra performances among the world by then.
