Vienna Philharmonic Leads The Way In Orchestra Reopenings

As many orchestras around the world grapple with how to return to performing, The Vienna Philharmonic have taken matters into their own hands, and commissioned a study on the risk of spreading infections during musical performances. The study determined that there is a low risk of infection due to the spread of breathing air from musicians.

Prof. Dr. Fritz Sterz conducted aerosol emissions testing, and summarizes the results as follows:

"The main focus of this test was to examine and document how air currents flow from the instruments and the musicians while playing.

With 4-8 liters of oxygen per minute, mist (= aerosol) was generated with a nozzle in a small container with 0.9% sodium chloride. With small probes in the nostrils, the musicians were continuously given this mist in addition to breathing. This ensured the dispersion of the aerosol in the upper airways. In a room lined with black, there were particularly powerful headlights behind the respective musician on the left and right to make the aerosol emissions visible. This made it possible to visualize the distribution of the exhaled air against the light and document it photographically.

Quiet breathing in and out according to the norm showed a cloud of fog of a maximum of ~ 50cm around the mouth and nose of all musicians. With the strings, this remained unchanged in the head area while making music. The wind players formed clouds of similar size in the area of the mouth, nose and head, regardless of the breathing technique. The cloud presented an increased eddy formation, so that a shape approximating the sphere no longer appeared. No or hardly visible aerosol escaped from the wind instrument openings. When playing the flute, a larger amount of aerosol escaped from the opening at the end of the instrument, which led to a cloud formation in the range of approx. ~ 75cm. An artist's exhalation air is therefore not expected to expand by more than ~ 80cm."

After these positive results, the Vienna Philharmonic is pleased to announce that they will once again resume on June 5, 2020, with individual concerts performed before small audiences in the Musikverein. This makes them one of the first major orchestras in the world to reopen their doors. The upcoming concerts will be performed in front of audiences of no more than 100, consisting of family members and supporters who have accompanied us through this crisis. In order to make the concerts accessible to a wider audience, they will be made available through radio and television broadcasts, as well as livestreams.

"We are delighted that our orchestra will return to the stage," says Marife Hernandez, Chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic Society. "Sad that they must cancel their 2020 American performances, we at least had their priceless recordings to get us through these times. We cannot wait for them to share their music with the world yet again."