By Cody Mello-Klein | cmelloklein@alextimes.com

For six months during the pandemic, music was alive again in Alexandria. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

At a time when concert halls, clubs and other live music venues had to close their doors, Classical Movements, an Old Town based classical music tour company, found a creative solution to the sudden dearth of live music. Starting in June, Classical Movements held a series of intimate, socially distanced outdoor concerts in the “secret garden” behind its historic 18th century building at 711 Princess St.

Between June and November, Classical Movements hosted more than 35 concerts featuring top tier classical musicians from some of the nation’s finest symphony orchestras. That was, until a single noise complaint from a neighbor brought the eyes of the city on the secret garden.

“On the 18th of November, we got a note in our door … that basically told us there was a complaint and we would have to get a permit – it was just a little one-line thing – or we would be fined,” Neeta Helms, Classical Movements’ founder and president, said.

The warning arrived two days before an Americana-themed Thanksgiving concert was scheduled to take place. Helms immediately called the city and got started with the permit process, but she said she knew the show had to go on.

“We decided we would face the fine if we have to, if we get more complaints, rather than cancel because people have bought tickets, these artists have come and practiced, this new work had been written,” Helms said.

The city never issued a fine to Classical Movements, according to Tony LaColla, the city’s land use services division chief.

Classical Movements held two more concerts after the warning and cancelled six shows in late 2020 and early 2021.

Over the last few months, Helms and her husband and senior vice president Johan van Zyl have been wrestling with the city to get on the Planning Commission and City Council dockets in the hopes of securing a special use permit. The Planning Commission is set to vote on the SUP on March 2, with a City Council vote to follow on March 13.

However, Classical Movements’ interactions with the city goes back farther than just November.

Helms said she first contacted the city in an attempt to secure a permit in April and May last year after the entirety of Classical Movements’ touring business evaporated. Helms and Van Zyl made repeated attempts to call and email the city, which the city acknowledges in its staff report to the Planning Commission, but were “getting a run around” for weeks, Helms said.

With no response from the city, Helms decided to move forward with the concerts, she said.

“We then decided to do these concerts because we were zoned commercial,” Helms said. “Outdoors we were safe, we were very quiet and when the governor of Virginia raised the numbers [of people who could gather] from 10 to 50, we announced our first concert. It was just this one day, with a plan to do three concerts with all local orchestras from the area.”

The initial day of concerts of June 20 was intended as a single event, a momentary balm for those who could not abide the deafening silence of a world without live music, Helms said. The concert’s success and safety for the audience and musicians ultimately led Classical Movements to expand the concept into a series called Sounds of Hope and Harmony.

“I think she was a lifeline to a lot of people who enjoy classical music and for whom it’s such an important part of their life,” Carolyn Fuller, a member of the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra board, said. “I think also, in this particular time when so many people were facing severe limitations on what they could do and the stresses of COVID and the uncertainty, this was really a wonderful present to the community.”

Fuller attended six concerts in the series, including the children’s Halloween concert, because she “wanted to see what they would do.”

The concerts were notably some of the first live classical music concerts to occur in the country during the pandemic.

“Alexandria was a little on the forefront of the American response to actively finding ways to continue to make music happen,” James Ross, music director for the ASO, said.

Ross, who rented out and conducted several shows in the secret garden as part of the ASO, said the concerts were vital for musicians in the area.

“Most of the people that performed, they’re not lying when they say that this was the only live performance they were able to do in these last months,” Ross said.

When the pandemic hit and live music venues closed, many classical musicians struggled to find opportunities.

“It was sad, and it was a little shocking for me because I have been playing for a live audience since I was 5, so to have everything cancelled, it was devastating,” Eugena Chang, a cellist in the National Symphony Orchestra, said.

When Chang performed in Sounds of Hope in Harmony in June 2020, it was the first time she had taken the stage in months. Although the crowd of about 40 people and her fellow musicians were socially distanced and masked, Chang said she still felt the connection that can only be forged during a collective experience like a live concert.

“We were all 6 feet apart, but actually in a way it was more intimate … because we had to listen more and look at each other to make that connection,” Chang said.

In addition to social distancing and mask wearing, Classical Movements took the temperature of every audience member before they entered the venue and audience members were mostly not allowed to leave their seat during the hour-long performances.

From the summer until fall, Classical Movements put on a variety of concerts ranging from chamber music and opera to gospel and spirituals. As far as Helms knew, the neighbors enjoyed the performances. Nearby residents would attend the concerts regularly. Even the neighboring Sunrise Senior Living facility asked about putting a gate in the fence that separated the two properties so elderly residents could attend or listen to the music more clearly.

The noise complaint and ensuing warning from the city came as a surprise to Helms, who said she remains adamant that unamplified classical music does not exceed the city’s noise ordinance.

“There is a noise ordinance in the city – I totally respect it – but our musicians are softer than the birds that chirp along with us, way softer than the airplanes that fly overhead, way softer than the cars and the motorcycles and all the traffic that moves around us,” Helms said.

Even more surprising was when police officers arrived at the secret garden during the Thanksgiving concert.

“The police said, ‘Well, they say you don’t have a permit, but I don’t want to know whether you have a permit. There’s no crime being committed here. We’ve got a lot of other things to do,’” Helms said.

Helms claims that the same neighbor who filed the initial noise complaint called the police. There have been no more complaints since then.

The past few months, Helms said she has been consumed with navigating the permit process. Batted back and forth like a ping pong ball between the Department of Transportation and Environmental Services’ Office of Environmental Quality and the Department of Planning and Zoning, Helms said that she has been “stuck between a lot of bureaucracy.”

The city has attempted to be flexible, LaColla said. City staff recommended that Classical Movements apply for a noise permit in the meantime, which would allow the company to hold outdoor concerts. However, there are additional obstacles that Helms and her small team would have to overcome to secure a noise permit.

“They would have to apply for each individual concert. It is kind of involved,” LaColla said. “ … It involves pretty much going door to door of everyone in the surrounding area to get their approval.”

Helms and her husband canvassed the neighborhood to secure support but had trouble getting signatures from nearby commercial property owners during the pandemic.

The city gave partial approval to the SUP in advance of the Planning Commission and City Council decisions in an attempt to provide Classical Movements with some flexibility. Classical Movements can currently hold limited indoor concerts, which Helms said puts her business in an impossible situation.

“During COVID, it’s supremely irresponsible. … The reason every concert hall is closed is because of the dangers to the audience and performers to be in an enclosed space with singers or performers, wind instruments and brass instruments,” Helms said.

City staff’s full proposal is no less problematic, according to Helms. The proposed SUP, which the Planning Commission and City Council can amend, limits Classical Movements to holding concerts on Friday and Saturday. More concerning for Helms, the SUP prohibits Classical Movements from organizing live outdoor entertainment.

“They could do outdoor events but have music in the form of background music, so one solo player, acoustic only, to limit the noise,” LaColla said.

Helms said she is still hopeful the city will approve an SUP that allows Classical Movements to hold outdoor concerts as it has been doing since June. If the SUP is approved on March 13, Helms already has a March 15 concert scheduled.

The Sounds of Hope and Harmony series is not about making money, Helms said. Priced at $40 per ticket, almost the entirety of the revenue gained from these 40-person concerts goes toward paying for musicians, marketing and cleaning and sanitizing supplies. The concerts are meant to benefit audiences and musicians, according to Helms.

“In my book, it’s the worst time for music and the arts to be silenced in this fashion, not only for the artists but for the public,” Helms said.

Many people who have attended Classical Movements’ concerts over the past six months said they had been moved by the experience. Sheltered within the walls of the secret garden, musicians and audiences were able to spend an hour away from the stress and cabin fever of the pandemic.

“Those first experiences of having live people in front of you playing and creating something out of the moment and particularly in that beautiful garden with air around you and plants, it was totally moving,” Ross said. “It reminded all of us of what music actually does or can do.”