SummerFest to continue as planned after COVID-19 case had La Jolla Music Society pondering cancellation

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein performs with SummerFest music director Inon Barnatan in 2019

Multiple tests were administered to musicians and staff members after cellist Alisa Weilerstein tested positive Monday, a day after her most recent SummerFest performance

San Diego Union-Tribune

Aug. 18, 2021 5:05 PM PT

The show will go on for SummerFest, which the La Jolla Music Society had considered canceling or changing into an online-only event after one of its star performers — the fully vaccinated cellist Alisa Weilerstein — tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.

Out of an “abundance of caution,” the nonprofit arts organization canceled Tuesday night’s SummerFest concert at the society’s Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla.

On Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, the society had the company Sameday Health administer COVID tests — an antigen and PCR test each day — to every musician and staff member, as well as to many of its board members, crew members and artist hosts.

Because those test results came back negative, the society is able to move ahead with the final three concerts of this year’s edition of SummerFest. Last year’s was held entirely online without a live audience.

In an email sent Wednesday afternoon to SummerFest ticket holders, society CEO and President Todd Schultz wrote:

“Our final three SummerFest concerts will proceed as planned tonight, tomorrow and Friday.

“In the last 36 hours, all musicians and LJMS staff have been tested for COVID at least twice, and 100 percent of them have come through with negative results. Additionally, all musicians performing in these final three concerts are fully vaccinated. Based on these results, we are thrilled to proceed with our performance.”

The three concerts that will conclude the 2021 edition of SummerFest are: “Intimate Letters,” tonight at 7:30; “Grand Duos,” Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; and “Finale: A Love Composed,” Friday at 7:30 p.m. The Friday concert was originally scheduled to have included a performance by Weilerstein, whose replacement has yet to be determined.

As a safety precaution, the society is asking attendees to remain masked at all times when inside the concert hall, hallways and restrooms.

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”