THUNDER BAY – As musicians around the world go to great lengths to continue collaborating and performing in an age of social distancing, with Zoom performances and rooftop serenades, one Thunder Bay family finds itself in a unique situation.
“We may be the only piano quintet in the world all quarantined together,” says Michelle Zapf-Belanger, a local musician who plays violin with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra (TBSO).
As suggested by its name, the Cosbey Quintet is a family affair, composed of Zapf-Belanger, her husband Thomas Cosbey, his siblings Peter and Catherine, and Peter’s partner Mariko Kamachi. The group performs periodically when Catherine, who normally resides in Cleveland, is in town.
One of those visits happened to fall as the COVID-19 pandemic grew more serious in North America and public health restrictions began to be put in place.
“She had to think, do I want to fly back to Cleveland or do I just stay here,” says Zapf-Belanger, “so she’s quarantined with us.”
Because the rest of the family live together under one roof, that left the five members able to play music together. But play to whom?
Ironically, the group has found a larger audience than ever during the pandemic thanks to their involvement with the Trinity United Church. The church has incorporated the group’s musical contributions into its weekly services, which are livestreamed online.
“It was just this slightly weird, unique situation where they realized they were just sitting on a piano quintet that were all quarantined together,” explains Zapf-Belanger.
The services, held in conjunction with six other local United churches, are a well-produced affair, with good sound quality and multiple camera angles. That’s largely down to the involvement of Rev. Randy Boyd, Zapf-Belanger explains.
“He’s already sort of a leader in digital distribution of services, so he was kind of on the vanguard of getting services to stream,” she says. Boyd had been streaming Trinity’s services for years before the pandemic.
The services tend to draw an audience of around 6,000 households – larger than the average symphony audience of up to 1,000, says Zapf-Belanger.
“We joke that we’ve never played concerts for more people with less preparation,” she says.
The quintet’s performances at Trinity may be less meticulously prepared than what the musicians are used to at the symphony, but they represent a vanishingly rare chance to see professional musicians play together live.
“We really want to continue to preserve the authenticity of the feeling of a live performance at church,” says Zapf-Belanger. “Everything you see on the camera is one unedited take of us playing. There’s so much temptation to do it over and over again until you get it perfect. We tried to keep it real.”
Some things can’t be replicated, though, and the violinist says one of those is the lack of a physical audience.
“Because we’re all classical musicians, we come at this very much from an angle of it being really important for us to play live, the joy and magic that happens when everybody’s in a room together. So it’s been quite an adjustment for us. Especially in the first couple of weeks, it was really rough to play to a room of nobody. I think that does affect our performance.”
Zapf-Belanger is mindful that the chance to continue to play with other musicians is a privilege many of her peers don’t have. She says the pandemic has left many musicians she knows in low spirits.
“It’s rough for musicians in general, all over the world,” she says. “It’s been weeks and then eventually months of all of their concerts cancelled. Not only is it a huge loss of income, but the uncertainty of not knowing when they’ll come back has been a stress – especially since gathering people together for live concerts is one of the last things that’s going to come back.”
In the meantime, those missing live music can keep up with the Cosbey Quintet through their performances at Trinity servicesand through their own independent livestreamed concerts. The group’s next performance takes place Wednesday at 6pm and can be streamed through their Facebook page.
