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Van Morrison is speaking out against the gig restrictions (including social-distancing requirements for audience members) issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, labeling the measures “pseudo-science” and calling on the music community to “speak up.”
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The New York State government has prohibited “licensed on-premises establishments” such as bars, restaurants, and clubs from hosting ticketed live music events or advertising performances – even if they’re socially distanced.
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Darius Brubeck at a UK jazz festival in 2012. After a month in hospital in the UK battling Covid-19, he is back home and regaining his strength as musicians prepare for a thanksgiving concert in aid of the homeless in Durban.
Image: Alan John Ainsworth/Getty Image
As acclaimed jazz musician and academic professor Darius Brubeck waged a month-long battle against Covid-19 in the ICU of a hospital in the UK, it was not death he feared most but the thought of never seeing his beloved South Africa-born wife, Catherine, again.
The 73-year-old American pianist and composer, who co-founded the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Jazz and Popular Music with her in the 1980s and still has strong ties to SA, was given a slim chance of survival by doctors after testing positive for the deadly virus in March.
Brubeck is the son of acclaimed US jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, regarded as one of the pioneers of cool jazz and best known for the jazz standard Take Five.
Now, as Brubeck slowly regains his strength at the home he shares with Catherine in Rye, East Sussex, she too is on a healing journey, recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after nearly losing her husband.
His recovery has inspired the Piano Passion Project — a collective of pianists mainly with piano lineage to Brubeck — to host a virtual thanksgiving concert on Wednesday.
About 20 pianists in SA, the UK, the Netherlands and the US, who he either taught, lectured with or mentored, are set to perform at the concert. It will benefit the Denis Hurley Centre, which feeds and cares for Durban’s homeless.
Brubeck doesn’t know when or how he contracted the virus, but suspects it was while he was on tour in the UK with his two musician brothers, Chris and Dan, and saxophonist Dave O’Higgins.
“A good guess is at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London, where we played seven sold-out shows in five days beginning on March 3,” he told Sunday Times from his home in the UK.
By the end of the tour on March 13, Brubeck was ill. His brothers, who later also tested positive, flew back to the US. Dan was admitted to an ICU in the US, and Chris displayed mild symptoms and self-isolated.
“I resisted going to hospital for six days despite having a high fever and a persistent cough. Big mistake,” said Brubeck.
Brubeck eventually relented and was taken by ambulance to hospital, where he was tested and given a “50/50” chance of survival.
Despite being on a ventilator, the terrifying experience is imprinted in Brubeck’s memory, which he is unpacking by writing about it.
“I recall all of this in vivid, horrifying detail, which I will not share now but will at some point. What frightened me most was not the possibility of dying but the thought of never seeing Cathy again and the rather paranoid notion that she wouldn’t know what had happened to me.
“I really didn’t know what was going on for a lot of this time, but I kept my sanity by repeating, actually mentally singing, ‘Love is stronger than death’ over and over. This was the last line of the piece Chris wrote that we performed with an orchestra and chorus in Fribourg, Switzerland,” Brubeck recalled.
“We are now literally recovering together as she is diagnosed with [PTSD] while I am trying to regain full physical functionality.”
Jazz musician and concert organiser Neil Gonsalves said: “This thanksgiving concert in aid of the Denis Hurley Centre brings full circle prof Brubeck’s connection and vital contribution to Durban.”
20 national and international pianists feature in 'Music Unlocked Session' in honour of the Professor
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LONDON – The chief executive of PRS for Music, one of the world's leading rights collection societies, has warned that unless the different factions of the U.K. music business put aside their differences and work together, the industry will not survive the coronavirus crisis.
Royalty revenues at London-based PRS for Music grew 8.7% in 2019 to total £811 million ($985 million), an increase of £65 million ($79 million) on a constant currency basis, year-end figures published Thursday reveal.
Of that total, a record £686 million ($833 million) was processed and paid out to songwriters, composers and music publishers, an almost 14% increase on the previous year.
Of course, 2019's record-breaking financial results were achieved pre-COVID 19 and it is almost certain that PRS' royalty collections will significantly fall in 2020 and, most likely, early 2021 on the back of the current global shutdown.
International receipts, for instance, were PRS' biggest single source of revenue last year with world tours by PRS members Ed Sheeran, Elton John, Florence + the Machine and The Rolling Stones helping drive £279 million ($339 million) in collections.
U.K. festivals and concerts by Ariana Grande, Spice Girls and Drake, along with music played in British shops, bars, restaurants and offices (collectively known as public performance), contributed a further £222 million ($270 million) to PRS' year-end total, a 16% rise on 2018.
With those revenue streams now cut off for an unknown time, PRS for Music CEO Andrea C. Martin says the impact will be felt by virtually every one of its 145,500 members, but it is too soon to estimate the financial cost of COVID-19.
"These are unprecedented and unpredictable times," she tells Billboard. "We're strong in live and international, so in the third and fourth quarters we will see a decrease, but by how much I really have no idea. We're doing everything we can to mitigate the risk and we're doing everything we can to protect the rights of songwriters and our members."
To that end, PRS for Music launched its emergency relief fund in March to help members severely financially impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. To date, the fund has paid out £1.2 million ($1.5 million) to more than 3,000 songwriters and composers.
The organization also held a 24-hour virtual fundraising gig (PRS Presents LCKDWN) April 24, featuring Tom Walker, Katie Melua and Linda Perry, among others, and has worked hard to speed up royalty processing and distribution times for members. Some international collections from societies in other markets are also paid in arrears, so a percentage of next year's international revenues will derive from concerts and tours in 2019.
Other glimmers of hope for the future can also be found in 2019's receipts from online platforms, including downloads, online video games and streaming services like Spotify and Amazon, which generated £179 million ($217 million) in 2019 (up 24% y/y) and will be relatively unaffected by the pandemic.
Included among that year-end total were PRS' first royalty collections from licensing deals brokered with Mixcloud, Facebook and Instagram in 2018, as well as revenues from video-on-demand services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, although Martin points out that in terms of absolute dollars, growth in online does not compensate the projected loss in live revenues.
Income from broadcasters, including the BBC and commercial network ITV, was £131 million ($159 million), up 2.4% on 2018, despite a decline in linear TV viewing.
In total, PRS processed 18.8 trillion music performances in 2019, a 68% rise on the previous year, with further transaction growth predicted in the future. Net costs reduced just under 7% y/y to £87 million ($105 million).
"We're leaders in our field," says Martin, pointing to a lean cost-to-income ratio and sustained growth of PRS for Music's international business.
Looking ahead, she says changes to ways that people are consuming and engaging with music, accelerated by the lockdown, will continue to transform the business. In March, PRS saw a 250% increase in licenses purchased for businesses broadcasting music from home, compared to March 2019. As more and more gigs are livestreamed, Martin anticipates further growth in online revenues.
"We will go into a much more digital world," she says. "What's really important, [as we] go through some very, very tough times, is that the music industry has to work much better together. We have to put our personal and company agendas aside. It's crazy how much infighting there is in our industry and we will not get through this if we continue in this way."
"We all have to put the purpose and the essence of this industry in the centre," she says. "If we do not think of the songwriters, composers and the artists, we as a music industry will not survive. We need to rally around that purpose."
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Now that people are getting used to staying at home, they’re increasingly grabbing their popcorn and turning to entertainment to escape the grim pandemic news, according to the second installment of Nielsen Music/MRC Data’s survey series, "COVID-19: Tracking the Impact on the Entertainment Landscape."
So how can music companies take advantage of this shift? We pulled four key insights from Release 2 for music executives looking for ways to help their artists cut through the noise.
1. Bundle new music with old faves.
With 84% of music consumers listening to music they usually listen to and 62% enjoying music they haven’t heard in a while, artists’ back catalogs could be powerful vehicles for promoting new tunes. (And with 62% of survey respondents listening to new music, too, promoting new stuff may well be worth the effort.) Playlists that mix catalog and new releases could pay off now.
2. Just add video.
Consumers are increasingly listening to music on TVs, video game consoles and computers -- making music videos more important than ever, with music video plays trending up 8.1% in the week ending April 9. Many labels are already making new official music videos for their old hits, but fresh clips could work for lesser-known deep cuts or recent releases, too. Pro tip for artists: Get real with your fans. Music-video viewers are responding well to personal introductions and storytelling that puts the music in context.
3. Create fun for the whole family.
Parents are still desperate to occupy their children as they continue to work from home, but the explosion of playlists aimed only at the tots or squarely at the working grown-ups are already losing their appeal, according to the survey. Maybe that’s because the whole family is stuck in the same room and can't agree on either. Try crafting inclusive playlists that all ages can appreciate.
4. Pass the tip jar.
While livestreams won’t replace real concerts, the survey found that 28% of respondents would be willing to pay for a virtual show. But allowing fans to tip during free performances is yielding significant revenue for some acts, too. Take requests: Teens are desperate for social interaction. And stay tuned for data coming in May from Nielsen Music/MRC Data’s third survey in the series, which will reveal exactly how much fans are willing to spend to attend concerts online.