Coronavirus: cellist Timo-Veikko Valve answers orchestra crisis call, again

The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Timo-Veikko Valve is a good cellist to have around in times of emergency.

Cellist Timo-Veikko Valve outside Hamer Hall in Melbourne. Picture: Stuart McEvoy.

The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Timo-Veikko Valve is a good cellist to have around in times of emergency.

The Sydney-based musician has twice in the past week come to the rescue of concert planners caught out by the COVID-19 ­crisis, travelling between Melbourne and Adelaide to avoid disappointing audiences.

Valve was the soloist in Monday night’s concert with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, a performance hastily reconfigured for live-streaming on the internet after Hamer Hall was closed because of the coronavirus.

It was the first time Valve — well known as the principal cellist with the ACO — has performed to an empty concert hall, with no audience seated in the auditorium. The concert was streamed via the MSO’s YouTube channel.

“If there’s a single person who tunes in and is a little distracted from all this chaos, then we are doing our job well,” Valve said before the performance. “Music can do that service to the community.”

Valve was a guest artist with the MSO after the original soloist, Dutch cellist Harriet Krijgh, was unable to travel because of illness unrelated to the coronavirus.

He said he was working out at the gym on Saturday when a call came from the Adelaide Festival.

The Adelaide Symphony ­Orchestra had been forced to cancel two festival concerts because of a team member who may have been in contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19.

An alternative concert, without orchestra, was hastily arranged on Sunday with the scheduled guest conductor and violinist, Anthony Marwood, pianist Stefan Cassomenos, and Valve on cello.

Their trio performance was a repeat from earlier in the festival.

Valve said he had not experienced any flu-like symptoms and had not been tested for COVID-19. He is on leave until Easter from the ACO, and the break had allowed him to take up the additional, unexpected performances.

The ACO, like the Melbourne and Adelaide symphony orchestras, is among dozens of arts ­organisations that have cancelled public performances in recent days. Several are exploring options such as live-streaming after the ban on gatherings of more than 500 people. “We are looking at new ways to perform and share our music until we are able to reopen our doors and welcome audiences back,” said MSO managing director Sophie Galaise.