Living Room Live: an online streaming platform for global musicians in lockdown

Violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen appeared on Sam Hughes Scala Session earlier this year with pianist James Baillieu. Since lockdown, award-winning composer Freya Waley-Cohen, and colleagues pianist George X.Fu and violinist Ann Beilby have been streaming concerts from across the world for the past month. With more concerts on the way, we asked them to write about the process of setting up the online hub.

Living Room Live was born during that first week of daily 5pm COVID-19 broadcasts in the UK, with the Prime Minister and Chancellor announcing evermore extraordinary measures. We found ourselves in an endless cycle of phone calls: to family, to friends, to colleagues… and then round again. Each day felt like a year; each morning felt like waking to a surreal nightmare. The structures that had been in place and taken for granted for our whole lives were swept away in a matter of days.

Tamsin’s first cancellation was in late February for a concert in Italy, where the outbreak was further along. Other concerts abroad became cancelled and delayed, and travel plans in the future began to break down. Then, we could feel it coming closer to home.

The last concert that Ann and Tamsin played was with their ensemble, the Albion Quartet, on the 5th of March — to a sold out, but half-empty audience. George played a concert six days later, where he had the distinct feeling that everyone was pretending that things were normal, while outside the world was falling apart.

A musician’s world is primarily about expressing and sharing, and not to be able to do so becomes intensely lonely. Through music, we share our experiences, our feelings, our thoughts; the isolation imbued every day with a sense of torpor and meaninglessness.

The anxiety about whether to go ahead with each concert was excruciating. Freya and her colleagues at the Listenpony concert series were relieved when the official lockdown announcement was made, and took the difficult decision of cancelling their upcoming concert out of their hands. In a matter of a week, everyone’s concert diaries were wiped clean until at least the end of the summer.

In the wake of this, we couldn’t practice. Days went by with us barely touching our instruments. In addition to the loss of purpose we were feeling, there was a real loss of connection to our community of musicians and listeners.

A musician’s world is primarily about expressing and sharing, and not to be able to do so becomes intensely lonely. Through music, we share our experiences, our feelings, our thoughts; the isolation imbued every day with a sense of torpor and meaninglessness.

In one of our endless daily phone calls, there was a moment where we realised we could responsibly isolate together in order to be able to make music together. About an hour after that revelation, we called each other back with the same idea: creating an online streaming platform that could be a hub for musicians from all over the world, to share music in a truly personal way, away from the grand concert hall by inviting our audience into our homes, from our own living rooms and studios.

Days went by with us barely touching our instruments. In addition to the loss of purpose we were feeling, there was a real loss of connection to our community of musicians and listeners.

In this spirit, the four of us — violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, composer Freya Waley-Cohen, pianist George Fu, and violist Ann Beilby — came together and began to be able to be creative again. We called our friends and colleagues and asked them to play whatever they liked, whenever they felt ready, long or short, as long as it was something they felt they wanted to share right now. Mostly everyone we called had felt exactly like us: unable to practice, with very little motivation and a deep sadness. For once, it felt great to have something positive to say!

Living Room Live: join in the spirit of friendship

Living Room Live presents 20- to 40-minute programs with handpicked works that each artist particularly wants to share. The works that the artist wants to perform shape the size and arc of the program. Living Room Live is a chance to deliver something special and intimate, as if we were playing for each individual listener. Like a magnifying glass held up to life, it’s a celebration of the artistic process and an invitation to join in the spirit of friendship.

In each stream, musicians are encouraged to introduce themselves, speak about the pieces, and share the music as if they had invited an audience member into their own private space. All sorts of different backdrops appear in these streams: from an unadorned, simple music room with a grand piano; to a colorful studio covered in sparkly curtains and drapes; to a room undergoing building works, decorated with paint cans and ladders and unwittingly simulating a trendy warehouse venue in Shoreditch or Brooklyn.

Available via the Living Room Live website and Facebook Live

Living Room Live streams concerts from our website and from Facebook Live. Many of the concerts have been shared multiple times, and people from all over the world have been able to tune in. It is heartwarming to read the comments and know that we are touching people’s hearts. In the spirit of generosity,

Living Room Live survives and pays artists through an online patronage system, soliciting small monthly subscriptions on Patreon as well as one-off donations.

After covering the overhead costs of maintaining the platform, the remaining pot is shared equally amongst the musicians who have performed. As organizers, we do not take any fees ourselves.

It’s impossible not to feel a huge sense of grief and loss, but from all of this comes the reminder of why we are musicians. For the first time since the beginning of isolation, we began making music again, this time with a renewed sense of purpose: to connect, to comfort, and to share. Through all situations, this spirit endures.

Living Room Live is giving us the chance to explore the music at our leisure and the luxury of creative space, showing a different side of music making: how we live with music at home. Music can connect us all and we need it more than ever.

Discover an archive of concerts streamed live since the beginning of UK lockdown.

Live concerts are broadcast every week via the Living Room Live website and Facebook page.

Support the work of Living Room Live via Patreon.com.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen and pianist Huw Watkins' latest release on Signum Records features recordings of Beethoven Violin Sonatas 1, 5 and 8 and is available from Apple Music and Amazon Music here**.**