The US Symphony Orchestra gave the first concert in the presence of the public during the pandemic

Only 250 people were allowed to enter the concert hall, designed for 2,450 listeners.

National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) The United States gave its first public concert since the current pandemic on Friday evening. The group, which was joined as a soloist by Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, took to the stage of Washington’s main theater and concert complex, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, for the first time in 15 months.

Nevertheless, there is no talk of any complete abolition of sanitary and epidemiological restrictions at the Kennedy Center. At the entrance, all the guests of the evening had their temperature measured and asked if there were any symptoms of COVID-19. The requirement to wear a medical mask indoors remains mandatory. And the concert hall, designed for 2,450 listeners, was allowed almost 10 times fewer people – only 250.

The musicians conducted by the NSO’s artistic director, Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda, performed Dmitry Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto, Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 95, and Four Novelettes for Strings by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. The president of the Kennedy Center, Deborah Rutter, who was present at the concert, recalled that in recent months, the NSO has performed several times without an audience, giving concerts that were broadcast on the Internet. “But it’s not comparable to being here in this room with you. There is nothing like live music,” Rutter said.