The Group Portrait: The Audience Is a Little Quiet

An ensemble from the New York Philharmonic plays Green-Wood Cemetery.

- By Justin Davidson

The New York Philharmonic has been emerging from its pandemic shell in stages, with a mixture of caution and disbelief. Impromptu performances from the back of a pickup truck, a string ensemble in an empty church, the first appearance in front of a tiny audience spread through a huge space at the Shed—these bits of concert life have kept the players faintly tethered to their routines. Soon, 17 members of the orchestra will pop up among the sepulchres at Green-Wood Cemetery as part of the series “Death of Classical.”