Coronavirus cases force cancellation of music festival in Brainerd

The delta variant has claimed its first Minnesota music festival.

After presenting six concerts, the Lakes Area Music Festival in Brainerd canceled its remaining 14 performances through Aug. 22 when two of its artists — all of whom were said to have been vaccinated — tested positive for COVID-19. The festival draws about 200 classical music artists from around the United States.

Hence, the decision was made to cancel all remaining activities of the festival, which were to include orchestral concerts, chamber music, recitals and an opera.

In announcing the decision via Facebook, the festival's artistic and executive director, Scott Lykins, said it had already implemented a mask requirement for artists and audiences, conducted daily rapid testing for all artists, and had hired a full-time COVID compliance officer.

The final concert was Friday night's recital by baroque violinist Chloe Fedor, livestreamed without an audience from Brainerd's new Gichi-ziibi Center for the Arts. Video recordings of that concert and three others from the festival's opening week can be found at the festival's YouTube page.

The cancellation abruptly halted what had been a coming-out party for the Gichi-ziibi Center, a new 1,200-seat concert hall in downtown Brainerd a block from the Mississippi River (whose Ojibwe name it bears). It also scotched a very promising series of performances led by the festival's new music director, German conductor Christian Reif — including a staging of Igor Stravinsky's opera "The Rake's Progress" — and a new vocal fellows program for opera singers.

Founded in 2009 by Brainerd-reared Lykins and a group of fellow students from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., the Lakes Area Music Festival became a popular destination for musicians from throughout the country, including members of New York's Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle symphony orchestras.

Since 2019, the festival had branched out with periodic recitals and chamber music presentations at the Woman's Club of Minneapolis. In 2020, the pandemic turned it into an entirely virtual festival, with concerts presented to audiences exclusively via the internet before welcoming live audiences again in 2021.

As for refunds for those holding tickets to this year's festival, that shouldn't be an issue: It's a free festival, sustained exclusively through donations, grants and foundation support.

"Our musicians stay with host families, they eat at local restaurants, they support local businesses," Lykins told the Brainerd Dispatch on Friday. "Because of that, even if they were the only ones in the performance hall, there would still be risk.

"Also, by having musicians all on stage at the same time, some of whom cannot wear a mask to carry out their craft, we can't ensure safety for those unmasked people, should someone be infected. … For many of our musicians, wearing a mask while they perform is an option. However, for woodwinds, brass and singers, it's just not something that is feasible to do."

It remains to be seen whether the festival's cancellation is a harbinger of things to come in the performing arts.

Rob Hubbard is a freelance classical music critic. • wordhub@yahoo.com