Choirs and choruses
FILE - This March 12, 2020, file photo shows Josie Robertson Plaza in front of The Metropolitan Opera house, background center, at Lincoln Center in New York. On Tuesday, May 11, 2021, the Metropolitan Opera reached a tentative agreement on a four-year contract with the American Guild of Musical Artists, one of three major labor deals needed for the New York company to resume performances in September. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
Met Opera strikes deal with chorus ahead of restart

By Ronald Blum May. 11, 2021 09:24 PM EDT

Sergio Valverde Espinoza, a Catholic priest of the Cristo Rey church who modified a popular song called "Sopa de Caracol," or Snail Soup in English, gestures during a Mass in San Jose, Costa Rica, Sunday, May 2, 2021. Valverde changed the song's lyrics to a message calling for the use of face masks and care during the pandemic. (AP Photo/Carlos Gonzalez)
Costa Rica priest sings public health message amid pandemic

By Javier Cordoba May. 03, 2021 06:41 PM EDT

People gather for a "Celebration of Life Memorial" for rapper DMX at Barclays Center, Saturday, April. 24, 2021, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. DMX, whose birth name is Earl Simmons, died April 9 after suffering a "catastrophic cardiac arrest." (AP Photo/Brittainy Newman)
DMX immortalized by family and close friends at memorial

By Jonathan Landrum Jr. And Jennifer Peltz Apr. 24, 2021 01:46 AM EDT

FILE - In this June 21, 2002 file photo, a huge pyramid dominates the stage of the opening performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida in the Verona Arena, northern Italy. Riccardo Muti will open the season on June 19 and 22, conducting a concert version of “Aida” to mark the 150th anniversary of the Verdi title whose pageantry has made it a festival mainstay. (AP Photo/Claudio Martinelli)
An 'optimistic' Verona Arena announces summer opera lineup

By Colleen Barry Mar. 11, 2021 02:42 PM EST

Bennett Konesni holds a book of sea shanties Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021, in Belfast, Maine. Work songs have helped sailors on long ocean journeys to break up the tedium. The genre is seeing a global revival among people bored and isolated by the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Sea shanties are having a moment amid isolation of pandemic

By David Sharp Jan. 29, 2021 01:14 AM EST

New York police officers move in on the scene of a shooting at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Sunday, Dec. 13, 2020, in New York. A man was shot by police after shots rang out at the end of a Christmas choral concert on the steps of the Manhattan cathedral Sunday afternoon. It's unclear if the gunman was killed or if any others were injured. The shooting happened just before 4 p.m. at the church which is the mother church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and seat of its bishop. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
NYC cathedral gunman's note says he planned to take hostages

By Michael R. Sisak Dec. 16, 2020 04:35 PM EST

State officials deliver $52.5 million to Idaho schools

Dec. 15, 2020 12:07 PM EST
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — State officials on Tuesday presented Idaho’s public schools with a ceremonial check for $52.5 million. The celebratory...

New York police officers move in on the scene of a shooting at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Sunday, Dec. 13, 2020, in New York. A man was shot by police after shots rang out at the end of a Christmas choral concert on the steps of the Manhattan cathedral Sunday afternoon. It's unclear if the gunman was killed or if any others were injured. The shooting happened just before 4 p.m. at the church which is the mother church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and seat of its bishop. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
Gunman shot by police at NYC cathedral Christmas concert

By Ted Shaffrey And Mary Esch Dec. 13, 2020 05:58 PM EST

Opera singers perform during rehearsals for Gaetano Donizetti's opera, Marino Faliero, at the Donizetti theater in Bergamo, Italy, Thursday, Nov. 18, 2020. In a signal of rebirth, the Donizetti theater in the northern Italian city of Bergamo devastated by coronavirus reopened this weekend after three years of renovations. (Gianfranco Rota/Teatro Donizetti via AP)
In Italy, theater reopens in town devastated by COVID

By Colleen Barry Nov. 23, 2020 08:32 AM EST

FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020 file photo, an empty street in front of La Scala opera house, left, is illuminated by a red traffic light in Milan, Italy. After a rash of COVID-19 infections among musicians and chorus members, the Dec. 7 season premiere at Milan’s La Scala opera house, a gala event that is one of Italy’s cultural highlights, is being canceled. The theater’s board of directors on Wednesday concluded that the pandemic’s situation and Italy’s anti-COVID-19 measures, which include closure of theaters until at least Nov. 24, won’t allow for “achieving a production open to the public and of the level and with the characteristics required” for the premiere. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File )
With performers infected, La Scala season premiere canceled

Nov. 04, 2020 02:00 PM EST

Musicians from the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra rehearse a day before their concert to open the Beijing Music Festival, China's first classical music festival since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, in Beijing, Friday, Oct. 9, 2020. China is holding its first classical music festival since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic featuring musicians from the global epicenter of Wuhan, in an attempt to aid in the psychological and emotional healing process. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
China's classical music festival to feature Wuhan musicians

Oct. 10, 2020 03:33 AM EDT

White House seeking volunteers for Christmas decorating

Sep. 03, 2020 11:41 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — The holidays must go on, even with a pandemic and a heated presidential election. President Donald Trump and First Lady...

FILE - In this Oct. 5, 2019, file photo, members of The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square look on during The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' twice-annual church conference in Salt Lake City. The annual Christmas concert by the choir has been cancelled because of lingering concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The cancellation of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square's holiday concert announced Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, by church officials is the latest sign that disruptions to normal religious activity will continue through the holidays. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
Mormon choir Christmas concert cancelled due to pandemic

Aug. 21, 2020 12:52 PM EDT

FILE -- In this Friday, March 13, 2020 photo a slogan on a chalkboard reads 'It's Corona Time' in an empty class room of a high school in Frankfurt, Germany, March 13, 2020. As Germany’s 16 states start sending millions of children back to school in the middle of the global coronavirus pandemic, those used to the country’s famous “Ordnung” are instead looking at uncertainty, with a hodgepodge of regional regulations that officials acknowledge may or may not work. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, file)
Masks in class? Many questions as Germans go back to school

By David Rising Aug. 09, 2020 03:46 AM EDT

Musicians from the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra perform during a concert in the ancient northeastern city of Baalbek, Lebanon, Sunday, July 5, 2020. Dubbed "an act of cultural resilience," the concert aims to send a message of unity and hope to the world amid the coronavirus pandemic and an unprecedented economic and financial crisis in Lebanon. For the first time since the Baalbek International Festival was launched in 1956, this year's concert is being held without an audience, in line with strict COVID-19 guidelines. Instead, it is being broadcast live on local and regional TV stations and live-streamed on social media platform. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Lebanon holds Baalbek concert despite virus, economic crisis

By Bilal Hussein Jul. 05, 2020 02:36 PM EDT

Louisiana guidelines for reopening schools during pandemic

By Janet Mcconnaughey Jun. 25, 2020 02:13 PM EDT
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Students will be wearing face masks and washing their hands many times a day when Louisiana schools reopen for the 2020-21 school year in...

In this photograph taken Thursday May 21, 2020, members of the Ndlovu Youth Choir wait to be processed for Covid-19 testing at a clinic in the Moutse Valley, 160 kms (100 miles) north east of Johannesburg, South Africa. Finalists of the 2019 edition of the U.S. television show America's Got Talent, the coronavirus crisis put the choir's dreams on hold, as their tour got cancelled, and they returned to rural South Africa. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
South African choir adapts to COVID-19 by making new music

By Bram Janssen Jun. 19, 2020 03:08 AM EDT

In this Monday, June 8, 2020, photo, a piece of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams is displayed in Worthington, Ohio, in front of a YouTube video of the Atlanta Symphony performing it. The coronavirus pandemic has forced choral singers to raise their single voices in song from isolated settings, singing to audio files or online videos rather than with other singers who have the potential of spreading COVID-19. (AP Photo/Julie Carr Smyth)
VIRUS DIARY: The singing stopped, and the emptiness arrived

By Julie Carr Smyth Jun. 09, 2020 11:25 AM EDT

Downtown Seattle and mostly empty streets are shown, Wednesday, May 27, 2020, as viewed from the Space Needle. Many workers continue to work from home due to stay-at-home orders intended to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Washington issues new guidelines for religious services

By Rachel La Corte May. 27, 2020 01:41 PM EDT

FILE - In this March 13, 2008 file photo, Hal Willner speaks at the SXSW Music Conference in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Jack Plunkett, File)
Luminaries Lost: A look at some of the artists lost to virus

By Andrew Dalton May. 21, 2020 05:29 PM EDT