20-21 Season Archives - Vancouver Recital Society

This is the announcement we were hoping we wouldn’t have to make: we’re cancelling the balance of our 2020-21 Season. No doubt this news won’t come as a surprise, but it’s terribly disappointing nonetheless. When we announced the cancellation of our fall concerts back in July, we held on to the hope that we’d be in a position to resume concerts by January, 2021. It’s become increasingly clear that we’re still very much in the throes of this pandemic, and restrictions on large gatherings and travel will be the norm for the forseeable future.

To our valued subscribers and single ticket buyers affected by these cancellations: please note that we’ll automatically issue refunds to your credit cards this Friday, October 16. Please allow a couple of weeks for the credit to show up on your card, but do feel free to contact our box office at 604-602-0363 if you have any questions. If you paid for your subscription by cheque, we’ll issue a refund cheque to you and mail it by October 30.

The tally of VRS concerts cancelled between March, 2020 and May, 2021 is 29. It’s a grim number. The impact of these cancellations cannot be overstated; ticket sales account for a significant proportion of our annual revenue. In the absence of concerts, we’re now more reliant than ever upon philanthropic support. We’re so very grateful to The Peak Group of Companies, RBC Foundation, The Edwina and Paul Heller Fund at the Vancouver Foundation, The Martha Lou Henley Charitable Foundation, and a number of individual concert sponsors and very generous donors who have pledged to continue their support over the coming year. We hope that we can count on you to do so as well. If you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation to the VRS, you can do so by clicking here, or you can mail your gift to our office (201 – 513 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, V6A 2V1). Donations over $20 are eligible for a charitable receipt.

We miss seeing you all and we can’t wait to reconnect with you once we’re back in the concert hall. Because we will be back… we’re determined to weather this storm. In the meantime, please stay engaged with us online via this website, our social media pages, and our weekly e-newsletter.

Stay well, stay healthy, and keep listening.

We’ve made the difficult decision to cancel all concerts scheduled to occur in the first half of the 2020-21 Season. The eleven cancelled concerts include, in chronological order: soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci, The Jerusalem Quartet playing all the Beethoven Quartets (five concerts), cellist Abel Selaocoe, trombonist Peter Moore, pianist Tamara Stefanovich, cellist Zlatomir Fung, and pianist Schaghajegh Nosrati. The Beethoven Celebration Lecture at the VPL Central Library is also cancelled.

For the past few months we’ve been working behind the scenes, considering various scenarios in which we could safely present these concerts. With the passage of time it has become increasingly clear that theatres are unlikely to re-open in the coming months. That reality, coupled with the ongoing uncertainty surrounding travel and quarantine, have necessitated that we make this difficult decision.

As of now, we’re still hanging on to the hope that we can re-start live performances in January 2021, or shortly thereafter, but that will depend upon many things, such as the ability to congregate in theatres, the international travel situation, and, of course, the readiness of music lovers and staff to return to the concert hall.

In the meantime, we’re working on trying to reschedule some of the concerts we lost from March – May of the 2019-20 Season, as well as those we’re going to lose in the first half of the 2020-21 Season. Success will depend as much upon the availability of the Playhouse as on the availability of the artists and their willingness to travel. It may take a season or two, but we’re determined.

Please know that we’re working on other initiatives that will help us to remain visible and audible over the coming months.

To those who purchased subscriptions, first and foremost, we extend our deepest gratitude for your enthusiastic support and willingness to take this journey with us. As promised when the pandemic first hit, we’ll automatically issue refunds for tickets that were purchased to concerts that are now cancelled. Credit card refunds will be issued on July 15. Please allow a couple of weeks for the credit to show up on your card. If you paid for your subscription by cheque, we’ll issue a refund cheque to you and mail it by July 31.

Thanks to the support of government, the Vancouver Foundation, and the remarkable support of our sponsors and donors, we’re stable and will continue work behind the scenes to ensure that when the concert hall is open, and you’re ready to venture out once more, we’ll be ready to receive you. We cannot express just how much we’re looking forward to that day.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to keep you updated via this website, our weekly e-newsletter, and on social media.

Stay well, stay healthy, and keep listening.