Jerry Hou oral history interview reflecting on Covid-19 pandemic

Today is June 16, 2020. My name is Shreyah Mohanselvan and here with us on the Houston Asian American Archives COVID-19 Special Collections oral history interviews is Jerry Hou. Thank you so

much for joining us today and speaking about your experiences and perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you for having me. Since this is your first time with us, could you tell us a bit about yourself? Sure.

I am currently at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice. I work as the associate conductor, and I've been there for six years now. So since the fall of 2014.

And in my role, there at Shepherd, I work with the orchestras, I work with the opera coach chamber music, and I conduct the new music ensemble. So a

little bit of everything there, and, as an alumnus of the Shepherd School, it's fantastic to be back and really giving back to the community that I really loved so much and cherish my time at Rice and really enjoyed

being at Shepherd. Okay, great, thank you. So to start, how has COVID impacted your daily life and your work? Wow. In so many ways.

As a musician, it's-it's been very, very difficult for us. Obviously, as an orchestral musician, we have to perform—an orchestra—sitting very closely together.

Of course, with all the physical distancing that is happening, it's very, it's-it's hard to fit that many people on stage. So that's sort of the one that first things.

An orchestra typically comprises 85 to 100 people, and right now, I'm doing a concert this week, here in Dallas. And we're going to have maybe 10 people on stage at once. 10 to 12 at the most.

And so it's definitely something that is not going— is impacting us immediately, that's going to be something that impacts us for the near future. As well as the-as the classical music tries

to deal with, how to perform and how to present concerts for a public and the same. And the same goes for public as well. Having a concert hall full of people just can't happen anymore.

And so we're slowly testing this week. I know a lot of organizations around the world, they're dipping their toes into how to present concerts. There's lots of stuff now being streamed online, and the

concerts that are being performed live. There is, there's not an audience. So basically to a empty hall, and to the online audience—anybody who's watching in in real time or later later—and

that is something that really, as once said, part of the magic of-of music is this sort of chemistry that goes on between the performers on stage and the audience sitting in the hall.

And it's really going to be interesting for me—this will be the first time I've performed at all since March 4. I did my last concert at Rice then. And, to no audience.

You know there's sort of— that's something that we are used to during the rehearsal process when we're getting ready for a concert, but something about a concert when you have an audience there that gives you extra spark of energy, an extra spark of inspiration, that,

it's hard to recreate. And so I'm curious to see. But on the other hand, I think musicians have been at home by themselves practicing or doing– doing

other things and they haven't had a chance to perform either together with their colleagues or for audience, and I think the-the alchemy of performing together for the first time is going to be quite, quite

special. So I'm curious to see what's going to be like tomorrow morning when I have my first rehearsal. So you guys haven't been able to practice a lot together. So it's mostly individual practicing that's

been going on right now? Absolutely. I mean, it's part but there's people are sort of practice on a daily basis just for themselves as sort of like as with the athlete, they have their skills that they have to practice, whether it's scales, long

tones, just to stay in good physical shape to play their instrument. But the actual idea of practicing music for a concert hasn't really been on the forefront because all concerts have been basically canceled through

the spring and through the summer now, and a lot of organizations, for example, New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera they've canceled through the end of 2020. And some orchestras have already

cancelled through the entire next season. For example, the Nashville Symphony has cancelled the entire 2021 season. And so the musicians are, you know, are in a desperate situation.

They have nothing to practice for and they're there. They live to play with each other and for others, and so it's been a very trying time for musicians. Mhm. Definitely.

So, do you foresee the system of arts and entertainment or even the music industry changing in the future due to this pandemic? I don't think we'll ever be the same again. And then in the immediate future, we're fighting

for survival. We're fighting for survival. If we don't put on concerts, if organizations don't put on concerts, there's no way to generate any sort of ticket revenue. And that has been a big, big

impact for a lot of organizations. So they're not able to, without generating revenue, it's hard to pay the musicians. And so it's sort of, very cyclical in that sense.

The musicians are very much want to perform and play for musician-for audience, and it's trying to, now, in these times, trying to somehow get an audience to come in to watch, to guarantee safety, and all the preventative

measures. And so it's— you see these— the plans have been drawn up so far, you see these concert halls that seat 2000, 2500 people, and some of the first concerts that are happening in Europe now, they're playing to a hall of 100 people.

And so it's quite, it's going to be quite a change. And I think for organizations, there's going to push them to be creative.

To survive, they have to figure out other ways to perform, to present music to their communities, and I think more important than ever, right now, communities need the arts of all kinds to

really remind us of what we're living for, in a sense, our-our connections to each other, our basic-our basic beliefs as humans that we all share.

These are very much expressed in arts, and so we are very desperate for them right now. And so I know that musicians are finding, trying to find any way possible to perform and play and, and share their love, passion of

music, and its healing power to as many people as possible. So what that means right now is there's a lot of things that's happening online, a lot of things are being streamed, whether it's via Facebook, or

YouTube. There's lots and lots of Zoom meetings going on, just as we're speaking right now. And I think that's great for a certain amount of period is certainly going to allow musicians to have a wider reach than their immediate community.

But I think the most important job and responsibility of musicians is their immediate community. And just like whenever you speak with someone, something about speaking face-to-face is very different than speaking with zoom, as we've all

discovered now in the past three months, and so, somehow figuring out ways to still present music to a live audience is going to be our goal and challenge, and trying to figure out ways to do it that are safe and efficient and

still does not reduce the impact of our art. So how have practices on Zoom worked? The problem is that they can't work on zoom.

Rehearsals can't work. Part of it is simply the latency that you have on for when people have different internet connection speeds. It's like if you're watching a

zoom meeting with a lot of people, you see— this is a great example is, I have a conducting class that I teach at Shepherd. It's only 10 people, and as a conductor we're trying to synchronize the musicians.

That's one thing—that's one of our job as a conductor. And so I'm trying to guide these 10 students through the motions together. So we start moving our arms together.

And it was impossible because everybody's arm was moving at different—it looked—what it looked on my screen is the different speeds, and there's absolutely no synchronicity whatsoever. Sometimes you'll see on YouTube right now, videos of musicians playing together.

And sort of the illusion of that is that there's a click track, meaning that a metronome has sort of created the beat that they will listen to and with a either head, yeah, with basically headphones and they'll play along with that. And

then through the magic of wonderful audio engineers and video technicians, you're able to synchronize everything together. And it gives a beautiful product that you can— one can watch.

But, having done that—um, we're finishing up a project for the Shepherd School, which we didn't have our last concert. And so I was trying to put together just a short snippet of about three and a half minutes of music which

ended up being eighty four people wanted to do it. And it took-takes over 100 hours just trying to line that up. Just with—and it makes one realize how special it is to be in a live orchestra, how fine tuned

of an organism that is. Just these people working together, being able to feel the music together, being able to hear and respond to each other, being able to sense the physical

movements together, as the things that makes one realize that live performance can't be replicated online. So that's been a big realization for me. Yeah, definitely. So other than digital communications

tools, do you have any alternatives in place yet to communicate or practice in case social distancing happens to be in place longer than expected? We're thinking about it. We're trying to come up with ways— I don't think trying to

rehearse together, there are many ways that are going to be effective other than in person. For sort of a presentation, part of it, part of what I envision organizations are going through is-is the kind of music that

they present, and how they present it. Orchestras tend to be very traditional kinds of groups. So they've been in existence for a couple hundred years now.

And it's changed, not that much, and sort of how orchestras have operated in the United States haven't changed very much. It's very much a, sort of, you rehearse on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and a dress rehearsal on Thursday.

And you have concerts Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And then you repeat that every week. And so, just, it's gonna make all these organizations think outside of the box.

First of like, you— we're not going to be able to have 100 people on stage now. So these— something that's— so what does that mean, if you only have 50 musicians on stage, I mean, you have another 50 musicians that can be doing other things. They don't have to be at home, they can be presenting different kinds of concerts.

With sort of the safety for audiences, getting in and out of the halls, it's going to be hard to have a concert that's more than a probably an hour, to an hour and 15 minutes long. So instead of a two and a half hour

concert, the concert is going to be much shorter. The amount of audiences is going to be much smaller, so instead of trying to cram as many people in, and I think people-the organizations have think about playing

more concerts to a smaller group of people, which I think is fantastic. I think it's going to create a certain intimacy that you can that you can't have whenever there's—there's a certain joy to being a part of a large

group. But there's also a certain joy to be in a very intimate setting. And we're going to have to explore that other side. And I think that's something that, you know, orchestras are trying to figure out how to

survive this next probably 12 to 18 months. These are thick questions that we're having. As for rehearsals, there's not much. It's very— if you think about musicians like,

athletes, so it's like trying to have a basketball practice or a football practice. In a sort of, digital way. That's not possible.

You have to be together to really work together as a group. I mean, there are other ways to sort of present music. As I was saying before, it's the a lot of the things that you see online that tend to be one person or

two people, maybe three people. And so it's going to be a different ways of— different ways of working to rehearse and such. But it's going to be hard to find different ways of

practice, as you say. So you had mentioned that you had a conducting class earlier. So what have you found is the most effective way to keep your students, or even as you're playing and practicing,

to keep them mentally focused on music right now? It's hard. It's really hard. I mean, I think during the first, you know, it happened basically after spring break.

So we had about five weeks of classes after that. And so the first couple of weeks we were just trying to, it was like a group therapy session, in a sense. We were just trying to make sure we were all

okay. We spent a little time just talking about what people were binge watching and what things you know what you were doing, because I think people were, were struggling in many different ways, and just

just trying to take care of each other and trying to, but, still trying to make sure that they were learning something. Or some of the lessons I've learned was that, you know, I think we're all learning, is that there's a sort of time limit that one can spend on Zoom at one time.

And my class will tended to be an hour and a half, and trying to do 90 minutes on Zoom. It's really hard to stay focused, especially in a class of which is conducting which is highly, highly interactive.

So we went to high interactivity to just looking at a computer screen, and they were trying— at first they were just listening to me talk which I couldn't do for 90 minutes, and so I was trying to inter-engage them to speak more and try to do presentations

themselves. As I've looked at more things now, I think, everything's up in the air for the fall. We don't know how we're going to deliver courses yet. I would say one thing I've learned is that more

meetings, shorter meetings, and a combination of live content and pre-recorded content is best, so that people can review. People can do things that when it feels

right for them, but then also having a chance to discuss and talk about, talk about things that were presented. As for actual performance of music. I'm not sure yet.

We're sort of figuring out ways of playing together. One thing that— one thing I've come to mind is sort of trying to present some concerts outdoors. And of course, with how finicky Houston weather is, you

know, once we get in the fall it will be a little bit easier. But a lot of the string players, all the wind players, their instruments are very sensitive to sunlight, sensitive to heat to humidity. So those are things to take take

into consideration as well. But I have some ideas that I'm going to try in the fall, and we'll see what works and what doesn't work. But I think you're asking a question that we're all asking ourselves at the Shepherd

School is how to be effective in teaching art that requires us to be, that requires physical communication in a sense. I had actually heard that, um, there are experiments right now being

conducted by the Shepherd School, or with the Shepherd School, by hospitals and labs to find more about the aerosolization of breath from wind instruments and players.

Have you heard about any of this? I haven't heard specifically for Shepard. I know that some of my colleagues were wanting to do that, and I'm happy to hear that they're moving forward with that.

I've seen, with wind players, for those that don't know how it works, you know, the air, you have to actually blow air through the instrument. And it goes through tubing and it sort of vibrates.

And so the air comes out somewhere. And so the big, of course, with COVID, the big danger is sort of it's transported by water droplets, by aerosol, so we're—

they were trying to see how far it would project whenever people were playing instruments. And so people were saying that, you need to sit at least six feet apart or, or sorry, not six feet apart, people have to

be at least six feet apart, with wooden players it's like 18 feet apart. And so it's just trying to— and as they do more instruments, I've seen some of the ones that they've done in Europe, basically, they'll take a

colored vapor that people will blow through their instruments and seeing how— so it's like, it looks like they're blowing smoke through the instruments, and they are able to visualize— have a visual representation of the dispersion of the— of the air as people

play their instruments. So it seems very hopeful. And so we're waiting to see, you know, how definitive it's going to be. Obviously, that's a huge, huge danger for that, of course.

And the hardest thing is going to be for choirs, because singing is something that really there's a lot of moisture coming out when people sing, and so it's something that's-that I'm not sure if they have figured anything out

yet. Great. Um, so you had mentioned that you have a performance in Dallas this week. So could you talk about that, and also maybe about practices leading up to it or any preparation that you have to do?

Sure. I'm here in Dallas this week. We're going to be doing a concert with the Dallas members of the Dallas Symphony. And it's, I think, this is gonna be some of the first performances in the US for a

symphony orchestra. And they had some chamber music last week with no conductors, so about four to eight players on stage and this week, it's going to be 10 to 12 players on stage. And the players have

gotten their music, and we haven't had any rehearsals yet. Our first rehearsal is going to be tomorrow morning. And so we're just sort of, we've gotten the music, we've gotten the layout, and so we're getting

an idea of how far spaced apart that we're going to be. So basically this is at the Meyerson center and it's a huge stage, but it's— they're going to be spread out as far as possible here. And so we have rehearsals

tomorrow and Thursday. And then our concerts will be Friday and Saturday. And I think it's gonna be a very limited audience of some family, friends,

and special guests of the orchestra. And they're going to film this and it's going to be broadcast later. But I think that's just sort of the first steps to see what's

possible and what's not for this process of presenting concerts. So it's very exciting. It's, you know, I definitely feel a little nervous. This is the first time I've spent this much— I've been out

of the house for this long or spent overnight somewhere else and so, just getting used to that and so, but I'm very excited for the chance to make music, just to, see, you know, I have some friends who are

playing, playing In the concert. So a chance just to see people, and but also just today I had to go— they're going to do COVID testing every day. So every morning I have to show up to do a test at 10

o'clock. And so-to be clear to rehearse the next day or perform the next day. So I drove up last night and then I went in this morning to get a testing and then tomorrow before rehearsal, I have to do another test

before the following day. So, and just the, the concert hall, you know, it's very-a lot of protocols around one way in one way out.

Checking temperature when you walk in and just lots of sanitizer all over the place. And so, and they're trying to make people feel as safe as possible. And I know there's a lot of other precautions such as filters being placed in the

ventilation system to scrub the air and deep cleaning at the end of each week. So it's we're going to see what works. And I think this is going to be very telling process for not only this organization, but for other organizations around the country.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy with all the regulations and precautions, it feels like that's the new normal now. It's, I mean, that's— it's good that people are taking precautions. I mean, sometimes, sometimes it's

easy to forget that we're still in the middle of a pandemic. And so, it's a good reminder. It's a good reminder that we still have to be safe. We still have to be careful.

And because yeah, it's like nothing we've ever dealt with before. So just to move— to talk about maybe what you've been doing at home, so Yeah,

what have you been doing at home? Have you been doing anything— picking up a new hobby, anything outside of music? Well, it's gone in waves, I can tell you that. Um, it's— at home, actually, it's—

it has been pretty, it has been pretty scheduled because I have a son who is three years old. And my wife, she is a restaurant owner. So she runs a restaurant, up in Kingwood.

So she's actually been working every day, or you know 5-6 days a week. And I'm, since we don't have a babysitter right now, I'm just sort of with with him all day. And it's sort of— it takes a lot of energy

and focus and you know, and it's been amazing being at home over, I guess it's been three months, just watching him change and develop and grow even within three months. And it's been— it's definitely a wonderful time in that it's been

hard to try to do my own work and have my own projects. Now there have been Zoom— Zoom, when I'm teaching on Zoom, where he's running up and, or I have to stop my-hold my class for a second while I

go run and get something for him and then come back, and you know, he's trying to watch on his iPad some video while I'm trying to teach. So those are some of the realities of that, I'm not— I'm sort of,

for better or worse, I'm not in one of the households where my spouse is also working and we're competing for space. But projects I've, you know, I think it's— some people have dealt with all this

time. I mean, the one phrase that I've, hearing more is that-the gift of time that we're have now, and this certainly is a gift in some respects. I know some people are very gung ho about—this is the break I've been needing.

It's like all the books I'm going to read and all these, you know, all this cooking I'm going to do and whether it's the, you know, I remember seeing all the articles about whether it was like Shakespeare writing King Lear during the

pandemic of his time or Newton and being sort of sequestered away, and I think, those are nice in hindsight and romanticized

some way because you're just looking at the huge span of time and one achievement. But I think the day to day—I went through periods where I was trying to listen to a lot of music, and I thought, okay, I'm gonna make myself a playlist of things I've never listened to before. And then I went

through a period where I was trying to read some, there's a period I was trying to cook a lot at home, and then I got tired of cooking and so we, we try to order— we try to do curbside pickup.

Trying to support a lot of our friends who run restaurants because it's been very difficult for them. They can't be open to dine in. And so just try to support them to help them survive, and, spending a lot of time walking on Rice

campus with my son. And so it hasn't been that much. I actually have not watched TV at all during this whole time. I've not watched Netflix or anything.

So you know, I still have some cards up my sleeve too. I can pull out and do if I get bored later on during the summer. But definitely things feel, feels like at least more adjusted. I feel definitely more adjusted to this as being the normal and it

feels easier to do day to day things rather than sort of the pressure of trying to, you know, doing using this like, all this time and trying to make sure every minute counts because the sort of, well we did anyways, especially being in

school, it's like, okay, you have four years at university, you better make every minute count. But I think it's been nice just to, be in the present, just to have time to

reflect. I think that's the one thing that's been nice is sort of time to reflect and time to, especially for musicians who are working, it's time to not be— because I feel like sometimes we're on this hamster wheel.

We're on the cycle of, as I was saying for concerts, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, rehearsals, concerts, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and even as students we feel like we're on the certain hamster wheel of the semester, and then we spent the entire summer or winter break,

trying just to recover but now we have this longer term, longer span of time just to reflect. And it's definitely made me realize things that are important to my life, things that I thought was

important or not, and things that I realized I can't do without. I spent a probably 10 days which I felt very low. Now realize I didn't, I didn't really make an effort to reach out to friends. And so after that, it's like,

you know, every day I try to make an effort to find someone to call a friend, to call or to have a Zoom happy hour or something just so that the there's still some kind of human connection.

Makes-I think it's made us all realize how we are social people. We're social— we are social creatures, and we need connection with one another.

And so I found that very true. So it's— I feel like it's things are coming out more of an equilibrium now. So it's, it's good.

Great. I definitely agree with you on the human connection part. Definitely. And you had mentioned you have done some cooking at home. If I'm not mistaken, did you share a recipe with the archives?

I haven't yet. Oh, you haven't yet. I haven't yet. That wasn't me, but, but I'm certainly happy to. Okay. So what do you think is the first thing you're going to do when it's safe

to go outside? When it's safe to go outside? Well, we are sort of safe to go outside anyway. I mean, we've sort of been going doing little things to, going to, like I said, to going to Rice to

go for walks. I take my son to go to the ice cream store, and we pick up an ice cream and then we walk back home. I think I think the thing I would love to do is sort of just sort of sit down to a meal with

friends, and just sort of be face-to-face and be with lots of people. People that I, that are dear to my heart, people that I love, and just be able to

talk face-to-face with people, with lots of people, and just see how people are, and just sort of connect on a very and they say that, there's no better way to connect them over food. And so just— and then growing

up in a restaurant, that's definitely something I agree with just having a great meal with good food, good drink with lots of people, lots of friends and just enjoy having a good time, instead of being sort of distance from each other.

Yeah. So how did you feel about hearing some of the assumptions made about the Asian community as being more prone to the virus and some of the hate speech directed towards the Asian community? It's, yeah,

it was difficult to hear. It was difficult to witness. You know even before everything shut

down, I know that in Chinatown, a lot of the Asian restaurants were really hit hard, because people weren't going there. And for the fear of contracting COVID, and so

it's brought back some painful memories. I would say for me. I grew up in a small town in Arkansas and I was one of only two Asians in my high school.

And so the def- being sort of in the minority, being the sort of the other, sort of, not fitting in a sort of definitely in— brought that back the those feelings, and it was something I had worked

so hard to get away from and that's one thing I had really loved about Houston was how international. As probably Houston's one of the few places I've really felt at home being Asian and just sort of how, how

diverse the Asian-the entire city is. And even within the Asian population, how diverse the Asian population is in Houston, and that's sort of why I really enjoy being there. And that's why I'm happy to

raise my son there, and it definitely brought back something of, you know, something I've been trying to get away from and realizing it's not something we'll ever be able to escape. So, especially today, June 16,

2020, the idea of dealing with sort of hate or racism is very prominent on everyone's mind. And relating to all of that as an Asian but you know, as a person of color, and just

all people of color and just relating to that, and it's something that I've, you know, I've been thinking about a lot. And I don't have any

answers. I don't know if I will have any answers, but I'm just trying to keep learning and trying to understand more, and my own attitudes and thoughts and such as well as why others will behave and act the same way.

Thank you for sharing that. How do you think, I know you said you don't have any answers yet, but how do you think we could come out of this pandemic stronger as a community? Well, how long do we have? Um, I think there there are a few

things come to mind immediately. A few things that we sort of talked about, sort of the need for human connection, and I think people will, you know— I remember seeing some cartoons about when everything was normal, how

people were on their devices all the time. And then as soon as people were sort of shut down, it's like everybody's trying desperate to get out to get together and not looking at their, you know, phones and

screens and such. I think, I hope that that will be something because I think just sort of the need for human human contact. I hope that...

it makes us realize we're all connected, as a pandemic as affects everybody. Of course, it affects some people more than others, and it has definitely

revealed a lot-some-has revealed a lot of inequalities, problems with policy, problems with our culture in the United States.

And I think it's very painful right now, but at least I think now that the band aid has been pulled off, people can look at look at these problems and start trying to deal with them instead of sort of doing a very

surface, lip service to it, in a sense. So actually really thinking about it, tackling these many problems that have come to the

forefront during this time. Other things for the pandemic, I think. Some positive things that are a little more cheerful has taken us into, you know, is definitely taken the world into the 21st century for how we're

going to communicate and how we're going to connect with each other, you know. I think a lot of people are realizing businesses, you know, people don't have to go to the office to work. They can work from home and

meaning they can spend more time with their families if they want to raise a family. And for me, I can give a personal story. I— one of my first conducting teachers is a, is a Finnish man

who just turned 90. He turns 91 in August, and he doesn't really teach anymore. But through, but because of this, he's been giving some classes on

Zoom from his little hut in the middle of Finland and so on Wednesdays, I get up about, I get up at six because the classes start at 6:30 in the morning, Houston time, because it's in the afternoon there in Finland.

But just to be able to spend, you know, the classes are about two hours long, and just to-just to hear him talk about music. And this is something that wouldn't have happened if we weren't in this, this pandemic. So that's sort of a more of a personal note, but just sort of hoping to

illustrate that we will be able to connect with people further around the world. I think it's definitely give us a time to sort of reflect and connect with people we have, maybe have not, connected with in a long time.

And sort of to nurture and re-evaluate and take time for all our relationships to to make sure that they're strong and healthy and

vital. So yeah, lots of promising things and positive things. Great. Thank you. So that's actually all I had prepared. Is there anything else that you would like to

talk about? Oh, gosh. Nothing comes to mind immediately. Yeah, I think that's all that's all I have for right now. I'm sure if you had asked another question, I

could talk more but sort of— nothing comes to mind right now off the top of my head No worries, no worries. We covered so much, it was great.

So thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. I really had a great time. Well, thank you for taking the time and thank you for allowing me to speak.