Pandemic vs. the Festival
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COVID-19 and the Falcone Festival: a Record
These pages collect the history of decisions made by the Falcone Board during the pandemic of 2020-2021 that resulted in holding the first and second Virtual Festivals. Beginning with the 2022 Festival, the Falcone Festival board has implemented the policies required by Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in order for the Festival to be held on their campus. Competitors, Falcone Festival board members, adjudicators, collaborative pianists, and other volunteers for the Festival are required to comply with Blue Lake requirements.
COVID-19 and the 2024 & 2025 Festivals
2024/25 Festivals
For 2024 and 2025, again the Falcone Festival provided Blue Lake with a list of contestants, judges, pianists, and volunteers and their email addresses prior to the Festival.
Blue Lake emailed a link to a health screening which consisted of a series of questions each person answered and sent back to Blue Lake prior to the Festival. Everyone passed the screening, and no further action was required by Festival participants.
Blue Lake did expect that if any participant showed symptoms of contagious illness, they would follow Blue Lake treatment guidelines.
COVID-19 and the 2023 Festival
2023 Festival
For 2023, the Falcone Festival provided Blue Lake with a list of all contestants, judges, pianists, and volunteers and their emails prior to the Festival. Blue Lake emailed a link to a health screening which consisted of a series of questions each person answered and sent back to Blue Lake prior to the Festival. Each person was asked to save the screen showing confirmation of passing the health screening, which they were to show when they arrived at Blue Lake.
Blue Lake had a policy in place regarding Infectious Contagions and COVID-19 Response: Individuals with a diagnosed communicable illness, including COVID-19, influenza, or any other highly transmissible contagion, would be required to isolate from others while receiving treatment, according to their standard protocols.
Happily, everyone passed the initial health screening, and no one came down with any infectious illness during the 2023 Festival.
The Falcone Festival Logistics co-chair had a complied list of all the people (and emails) who were to be at Blue Lake and kept a record of each person’s confirmation on a master list. Our verification was shared with Blue Lake personnel.
COVID-19 and the 2022 Festival
2022 Festival
Brief Description:
For the 2022 Falcone Festival, our host, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, required all participants (competitors, judges, volunteers) to take and have a negative rapid COVID test, provided and supervised by Blue Lake personnel prior to attending any activity on the Blue Lake campus. This was mandatory and anyone with a positive response would not have been allowed to enter the camp and thus not allowed to participate in the Festival.
President’s update: July 25, 2022
The Falcone Festival is excited to return to a live and in person event this year, and we are thankful to be back at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, our host site since the inception of the Festival.
Blue Lake has recently provided the Falcone Festival with details related to COVID guidelines and testing, so we want to be sure that participants know what to expect prior to travelling to the festival and upon arrival regarding your health status.
Our goal is to provide a safe and healthy in-person festival, and to mesh in with regular camp activities which will be in full swing during the Falcone Festival. We feel that these protocols are a reasonable expectation, and trust that all will agree.
Competitors and participants are asked to review the Falcone Festival COVID Plan 2022 from the Blue Lake health director/administration. Included are expectations prior to your travel to the Festival, and expectations once you are on camp. Blue Lake has established locations and open times for each Festival participant to conduct a rapid test upon first arrival at camp.
So that all of the competitors, adjudicators, pianists, board members, and elves can fully take part in the Festival events, please be as careful as possible in the coming weeks to insure your good health. If any people happen to test positive for COVID just prior to, or while at the Festival, they will unfortunately be unable to compete/participate in the Falcone Festival events.
Thank you,
Philip Sinder
President, Falcone Festival
COVID-19: 2021 Updates & Welcome to the Festival
2021 Festival Updates
COVID-19: 2021 Updates
FALCONE FESTIVAL ANNOUNCEMENTS REGARDING THE COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS
April 14, 2021: 2021 Falcone Festival will be Virtual
The Falcone Festival, following an April 12, 2021 meeting of the Board of Directors, has made the decision to hold the 2021 Festival in a full virtual setting as was done last year. The Festival Board considered several possible sites, including our normal host location of Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, as destinations for a live festival. However, due to concerns of health, safety, access, travel, and programming related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Board felt that the wise move was to conduct a virtual event.
The Falcone Festival will take place August 7-8, 2021. In addition to our semi-final and final rounds involving 32 competitors, the Festival will be planning additional performances, masterclasses, interviews, and historical events to be broadcast at that time.
We encourage you to submit a preliminary round application by the April 30th deadline. All application details may be found at our website.
The Falcone Festival intends to return to a live event in 2022, hosted by Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.
March 18, 2021: Preliminary Round Application Deadline Extended
The Leonard Falcone International Euphonium and Tuba Festival will celebrate our thirty-sixth year in 2021, continuing our legacy of offering competitions, cash prizes, educational events, performances, music commissions, and outreach. Our plan has been to host this annual event in early August, as usual, and we have been working to cope with the continuing COVID pandemic to allow for a Festival that is accessible, safe, and uplifting for all involved.
To date, the Festival Board has not fully determined if it will hold a live and in-person event or a virtual event similar to our 2020 Festival experience. We expect that a final decision will be made in the next few weeks.
As a result of this extended and important decision, the Festival is electing to move the initial entry deadline for preliminary round applications one month later. The new official entry deadline is midnight on April 30, 2021.
The Festival will notify all entrants of the invited semi-finalists early June 2021.
Thank you for your interest in the Festival and best wishes with your preliminary round application/recording!
Welcome to the 2021 Virtual Falcone Festival
As the Falcone Board began to plan for the 2021 Festival in the Fall of 2020, COVID-19 and its variants were still running rampant in the world with vaccines not yet created for the public. The Board sincerely hoped that it would be possible for our thirty-sixth Festival in 2021 to be in-person, continuing our legacy of offering competitions, cash prizes, educational events, performances, music commissions, and outreach. We planned to host this annual event in early August, as usual, and we worked to cope with the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and still provide a Festival that would be accessible, safe, and uplifting for all involved.
Although vaccines were becoming more widely available, the supply was limited, so in mid-March 2021, the Festival Board determined that we did not have enough information to determine whether we could definitely hold a live and in-person event (which we preferred) or whether to have a virtual event similar to our 2020 Festival experience. A final decision would be made in the next few weeks. As a result of that extended and important decision, the Festival elected to move the initial entry deadline for preliminary round applications one month later, to midnight on April 30, 2021.
When the time arrived for the decision to be made, the State of Michigan was experiencing an increase in COVID-19 cases. Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp was unable to accommodate the Festival as they were restricted to 25–50% occupancy. Other venues that we contacted were interested in hosting the Festival…except their COVID-19 officers informed us that they could refuse to have our group in their facilities at any time. Also unclear were airline scheduling and how long or even if foreign visitors would have to quarantine. With so many unanswered questions, the Board felt it wise to hold a second virtual event, which was announced on April 12, 2021.
Thus, the Virtual Falcone Festival is taking place August 7-8, 2021. Involving 32 competitors plus alternates in the semi-final and final rounds, the Festival is planning additional performances, interviews, and historical events to be broadcast at that time.
The Falcone Festival fully intends to return to a live event in 2022, hosted by Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp!
COVID-19 and the 2020 Virtual Festival
COVID-19 and the 2020 Virtual Festival
FALCONE FESTIVAL ANNOUNCEMENTS REGARDING THE COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS
May 15, 2020
2020 Falcone Festival Goes Virtual: The Falcone Festival is making plans to proceed with a virtual competition for 2020, where the semifinal and final rounds will be submitted via video from all named semifinal competitors. Required competition repertoire will remain the same as posted, with music for each round performed without accompaniment. The Festival will be conducted during the weekend of August 8-9, 2020. In the coming weeks, the Festival will announce further details regarding the competition and the Festival schedule. It is expected that all semifinal competitors will be announced following the preliminary round review process, by early June 2020. Thank you for your interest in the Festival, and we are delighted to be able to hold an alternative Festival in these challenging times!
April 13, 2020
Today, April 13, 2020, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp announced that due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, their entire summer season will be cancelled. Blue Lake has been host to the Falcone Festival for the past 34 years, and an integral part of the success of the Festival, and we are saddened to learn of this development.
The Falcone Festival is evaluating plans for an alternative Festival in 2020, including both live and virtual platforms. We are working toward this goal and expect further updates in the coming weeks. We encourage all artist and student level entrants to submit preliminary round recordings on or before the April 30, 2020, deadline.
If there is a need to cancel the 2020 Festival prior to the start of the preliminary round adjudication process, all entry fees will be returned.
March 15, 2020
During the past few days, the impact of the COVID-19 Coronavirus has altered and challenged most every aspect of normal functions. In the USA, as well as in many international locations, universities and public schools are now shut or in virtual instruction mode for the coming weeks, and the regular plans for student and professional musicians and teachers have been suspended for the time being. Access to facilities, lessons, pianists, and recording engineers have become challenging.
As a result, the Falcone Festival Board has today supported two changes to the preliminary application requirements for the 2020 Festival.
The Festival application deadline has been extended to April 30, 2020, giving an extra month to complete and submit materials.
The requirement of submitting recordings of works with piano accompaniment has been waived. The required repertoire remains the same for 2020, but it is your choice whether to submit with or without piano accompaniment.
If you have already recorded and/or submitted a Falcone application for 2020, there is no need to alter your entry. If you opt to record without piano, please make every effort to observe notated rests of one measure or less, but to reduce any longer rests in the music.
The Falcone Festival looks forward to our 35th annual Festival and competition, taking place at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, Twin Lake, Michigan, from August 7-10, 2020. We have every expectation that the Festival will occur as scheduled, and will continue to provide updates as the Coronavirus situation develops.
Journey to the 2020 VIRTUAL Festival
Although the COVID-19 coronavirus was first detected in 2019, it was not until the early months of 2020 that its impact on the world became evident. By mid-March, most U.S. grade schools, high schools, colleges, and universities dismissed their students from their campuses to stay at home and attend classes on-line. In what seemed a blink of an eye, life here turned upside down. Mothers, fathers, and students were working and studying at home.
This disruption to “normal” life had an impact on everything, including the Falcone Festival. Students lost the resources ordinarily available to them—no pianists to rehearse and record with, limited or no recording facilities outside their homes and, for some, loss of school-owned instruments. Add to that the difficulties of those in apartments who had to juggle times to rehearse while accommodating schedules of those in apartments around them, people who are working from home or perhaps working nights and needing to sleep during daylight hours. Certainly, a challenge!
The Falcone Festival Board’s first announcement regarding the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic came on March 15, detailing changes to the preliminary application requirements for the 2020 Festival. The deadline was extended from March 31 to April 30, 2020, giving applicants an extra month to complete recordings and submit materials. In addition, the piano accompaniment requirement was waived; the required repertoire remained the same as originally posted for 2020 but allowed applicants to choose to submit with or without piano accompaniment.
On April 13, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp announced it was suspending all camp activities for 2020. This meant that the Festival could not be held there. The board considered options and decided they were unlikely to find another venue for August. Moving the Festival to a later date (December 2020 or January 2021) was problematic because of the uncertainties about contagion and peoples’ schedules.
That left the board to decide whether we could present a virtual festival up to our standards or whether we should simply cancel the 2020 Festival. We announced our compromise on April 24: we would hold a festival, even though we weren’t sure exactly what it might look like, and we would try to keep as many signature aspects of a “normal” festival as we could.
When we reached our (new) deadline for applications on April 30, we found ourselves with a robust pool of applicants in all four divisions. Our belief that players would remain interested in applying was justified! On May 15, the board announced that the 2020 Falcone Festival was going virtual. So…
Welcome to the 2020 Virtual Falcone Festival!