Ysenda Maxtone Graham

The government is strangling choirs, but the evidence just isn’t there

A brief but sharp twist of the knife was felt across the world of our gagged choral musicians on Friday evening, when the Times Science Correspondent Tom Whipple tweeted ‘It’s not good news’ about the future of choral singing. Sage documents had ‘dropped’, he wrote, containing the ominous statement, ‘There is some evidence to suggest that singing can produce more aerosols than normal talking or breathing; it may be more akin to a cough.’ And ‘Singing for any appreciable amount of time therefore may present a risk for the creation of infectious aerosols and allow for infection transmission.’

Were these the long-awaited Porton Down findings? They weren’t. In fact, as Declan Costello, the ear, nose and throat surgeon who’s conducting singing experiments alongside the Porton Down ones, reassured me when I got in touch with him in a panicky way, those comments are ‘unattributed, unverified and not supported by any scientific data. We need to see a complete document before rushing to any judgements.’

It’s a dress rehearsal, though, for what will surely happen when the real results come out in a couple of weeks’ time. We know scientists. They’re almost certain to come out with some non-committal but warningly negative ‘results’ – ‘there is some evidence to suggest that singing may…’ – that will spread the message that it’s dangerous to sing. The government, suddenly bloodthirsty in its clamping-down zeal, will clamp down on the joyous small steps that are just starting to happen – such as a live – yes, live! – choral evensong broadcast from St Martin-in-the-Fields last Wednesday, infinitely more moving and powerful than any pre-recorded service.

It seemed like a good idea to let the scientists loose on the contents of singers’ breath; but don’t you remember how science experiments at school, even ones conducted by the chemistry master himself, never quite came out as they were supposed to, and came out slightly differently if he did it twice? Will these findings, that will be slavishly acted on by the government, really be allowed to kill off one of the miraculous art forms of humanity?

It’s not just cathedral, college and concert choirs who are suffering, although they are, terribly.

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