Edinburgh Festival Ode to Joy performance cancelled after Covid face masks row

A much-anticipated Edinburgh Festival concert set to have featured Ode to Joy, the EU anthem, has been axed after a Scottish choir refused an American orchestra’s demands to wear face masks while singing.

The Covid row has led to the cancellation of the performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which includes the theme, because the Edinburgh Festival Chorus rejected the Philadelphia Orchestra’s call for wear face coverings.

Disappointed music fans said the demand for singers to wear masks was “potty”. Organisers said the orchestra, which has a residency at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, will now perform Beethoven’s Fifth – which does not require a choir – on Aug 25.

David Kemp, who has been attending concerts at the festival since the first one in 1947, when he was 10, said: “I was looking forward to going with my family, who are all diehard Remainers, to hear the Ode to Joy.

“This last-minute change to Beethoven’s Fifth is very disappointing.”

‘Absolutely potty’

Jackie Bruce said she had bought 10 tickets, and pro-EU friends and family were “looking forward tremendously” to hearing the European anthem.

“This is absolutely potty – how can a choir sing while masked?” she said. “I am sure the orchestra are all multiple vaccinated and so are the choir, so it is complete overkill.”

Behind the scenes tensions over Covid protocols are understood to have been simmering for several weeks.

The performance of Beethoven’s Ninth at the 2,200-capacity Usher Hall had been billed as one of the highlights of the International Festival programme.

The Philadelphia Orchestra said its performers, other than those playing wind instruments, would wear face masks for the concert. The Edinburgh Festival Chorus, a group of 130 singers, has been described as the “backbone” of the International Festival, regularly performing alongside world-class orchestras.

‘Decision not taken lightly’

A spokesman for the International Festival said the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Covid protocols “differ from current UK guidance”, meaning a change to the programme had been needed.

An orchestra spokesman said the decision to change the concert “was not taken lightly” but that a masked choir was “in the best interest of health and safety”.

“While we understand that Scotland’s Covid protocols differ from ours, we felt this precaution was especially important at the very start of a long and complex tour,” the spokesman added.

"Our advisers at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that singing creates significantly wider and more distant spread of aerosols than speaking does, and that masks reduce this spread of aerosols, and therefore the risks, dramatically.”