Breaking Barriers and Moving Forward

The COVID-19 restrictions pushed arts organizations, like the NAC, to move their services online faster than expected. The evolution of digitization and technology around the world contributed to this inevitable shift and the ways in which audiences engage with the arts. Despite several barriers and challenges, the Music Education Department, the NAC Orchestra, and the Popular Music and Variety Department pivoted their programs to meet the needs of their individual sectors, artists, and audiences.

Through the work of a new cross-disciplinary team, the Music Education Department created diverse virtual resources and programming. Cimon and her team developed a plan to expand their existing resources to meet the needs of a variety of audiences, from students, parents, educators, adults, and artists from all regions of the country. Her goal was to create accessible programming that offered quality music education. Moving forward, the department hopes to continue building resources that represent inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility through collaborations with other arts organizations and community programs.

The NAC Orchestra administration worked closely with other departments, such as the Digital Media and Music Education departments, to make their virtual programming a reality. Burt and her team, developed a new online performance experience that gave the viewer an insider perspective into the performances. Representation in programming is something very much on the minds of both Burt and the Music Director, Alexander Shelley. Throughout the pandemic, this department worked in collaboration with other arts organizations to bring minority voices to the forefront. Building relationships and partnerships outside the NAC has been a key component to advance resource and program development throughout the pandemic.

For Gibson, the transition online was as much about broadcasting out to Canadians as it was going to Canadian artists to help facilitate virtual programming. This is part of Gibson’s larger views on the key role that the NAC plays in artist development in the Canadian music landscape. Her creation of Canada Performs platform established a new mode for live-streamed performances. This gave performance opportunities to minority or remote communities that would otherwise face challenges and restrictions in travelling. To aid in these challenges, the NAC travelled to artists instead and supported them through technological difficulties experienced through streaming. Gibson believes moving online has allowed them to address equitable programming and create opportunities to bring in BIPOC and LGBTQ+ musicians. The challenge of online content continues to be the navigation of meaningful audience engagement.

The NAC’s virtual programs and resources created opportunities for musicians at a time when their options for meaningful employment were destroyed by lockdown. But at the same time, their virtual platforms removed several barriers (namely geographic, temporal, and financial) so that the broader Canadian public would have the opportunity to participate in NAC programming. Looking to the future, Cimon, Burt, and Gibson are all in agreement that the online platforms are here to stay. They will continue to implement what they have learned throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and embrace the online world in order to meet the needs of their viewers, performers, artists, staff, and patrons.